Agent 3 Back in Time
by Voosh
Summary: Agent 3 wakes up two years in the past. Somehow. Is he going to change things? It's a time travel story of course he is.
1. Chapter 1

Agent 3 was confused when he woke up.

Generally, you were supposed to wake up in the same bed you fell asleep in.

Also, generally, your phone wasn't supposed to turn into the 2 year old model you had replaced, you weren't supposed to have had all your clothes replaced with the ones you owned 2 years ago, the date and time on everything that displayed the date and time wasn't supposed to have been set back to 2 years ago, and your mom wasn't supposed to be calling you down for breakfast when you moved out 2 years ago.

If Agent 3 wasn't a skeptical sort, he might have had to assume he'd gone back in time to 2 years ago.

* * *

After a few hours of waiting for the cameras to come out, Agent 3 ran out of skepticism and had to accept-

No wait! He'd found a bit more!

Whipping out his old phone and spending half a minute figuring out how the old interface worked, he called a friend

"Hey, this is Marie of the Squid Sisters, who's this?"

"Is Callie trying to pull a time travel prank on me?"

"… You know if that one guy hadn't asked for my sweat that one time that'd probably be the weirdest thing anyone's ever asked me."

"Is that a no then?"

"How'd you get my number?"

Agent 3 hung up and ran a hand over his face. Marie could be mischievous when she wanted to but she was generally reliable enough to let you know when Callie was up to something if you asked. If this wasn't one of the few times she'd decided to playing along with Callie's antics and she really didn't remember him, that meant he had to accept he was back 2 years in the past. Somehow.

"Oh, my aching tentacles…"

* * *

Everyone thought about going back in time, usually to undo that embarrassing thing you did last week. You know what I'm talking about, that thing you did in public, and when you looked around to see if anyone saw you it looked like no one saw but you were never sure. I saw what you did. I saw and I'm judging you.

Anyways the point is no one really appreciates how much of a hassle time travel is.

Every extended talk with the family was a game of "Try to act like you remember what was happening this random day 2 years ago", with an occasional bonus round of "Try to remember what I'm not supposed to know yet". Seeing as he hadn't moved out yet he didn't make any of the house rules and thus couldn't drink milk out of the gallon anymore, something he only remembered after his dad had yelled at him for drinking milk out of the gallon. He had chores again, which were always worse when someone else told you to do them. None of his friends knew who he was, that was annoying. In about two weeks DJ Octavio was going to steal the Great Zapfish, threatening to plunge the Inklings into a power crisis if someone didn't steal it back.

Admittedly that last one was a problem specific to Agent 3 but the point stood.

Still, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Time travel presented a good opportunity to "Set Right What Once Went Wrong" and all that good stuff. Agent 3 was fully planning on taking advantage of the situation to ensure the best-case scenario. Well, the better case scenario anyways, the way things went last time worked out really well all things considered.

But, as Agent 3 stayed up past midnight for the 3rd time in a row trying to figure out **how** he'd get that better case scenario, he really wished it didn't take so much work.

* * *

The first time he'd moved out it'd taken him a while. As cool and confident as he liked to look, he could admit that way back when he was 14 the first time (and boy was it weird having to remember he wasn't 16 anymore) the task had seemed daunting enough that he was so nervous about leaving the nest that'd he dragged his feet for a few days.

Not this time, he'd packed up and left as soon as he'd managed to convinced his parents he had enough money to get an apartment. He didn't, but he could slum it until he did. It's not that he didn't love his parents, he really did, it's just that there was that whole business of fighting the Octarian menace he had to think about. Also, if he wanted to drink milk out of the gallon, he would drink milk out of the gallon, he would not be stopped.

So once more he found himself at Inkopolis Plaza, drinking a coffee in that café he'd always told himself he'd visit but never had. It was surreal seeing the Plaza in its Heyday again. When Inkopolis Square had been renovated a lot of inklings had left the plaza, not enough to tank the place, but enough that the difference had been noticeable.

" _Except I didn't notice it, huh?"_ Agent 3 mused internally. _"I never realized how many people left before. Guess Agent 4 wasn't completely wrong about the Square."_

light arguments between 3 and 4 was a common occurrence, not that 3 had anything against the squirt, she was just a bit too friendly and his natural instinct towards people like that was to snark at them, and she'd taken to snarking back. Occasionally she'd sing the praises of Inkopolis Square, saying something or other about how it was "the best place in Inkopolis" purely to wind him up. She was wrong of course, but maybe she wasn't 100% wrong. Just like 90% wrong.

(and only 1% went to the population thing, the other 9% came from the fact that Crusty Sean's food was legit.)

Agent 3 went to take a sip of his coffee only to find it empty, and so stood and went for the door. He walked into the plaza, chucked his coffee cup into a nearby trash can, and looked up at the Great Zapfish still coiled around Inkopolis Tower.

" _That ain't gonna last much longer…"_

He was pretty sure he still had a day or two before DJ Octavio would swipe the Great Zapfish. (and how exactly Octavio managed that without anyone noticing Agent 3 still didn't understand). If he recalled correctly, Once the Zapfish was stolen Cap'n Cuttlefish would spend maybe two days investigating the theft before declaring it the work of the Octarians (He was cracked in an eccentric old guy kinda way, but not quite cracked enough to blame an entire species with no proof). Then it'd take another two before he'd start scouting for an agent, since he'd try to get Callie and Marie to get the Zapfish back first (and they'd do what they could, but it was hard to juggle being pop stars and secret agents).

Best case scenario, he had about 6 days before the point when he'd originally became Agent 3. Doing exactly what you did the last time defeated the purpose of going back in time, so he wasn't waiting the full six days. Joining up with the Splatoon when Cap'n Cuttlefish tried to recruit Callie and Marie was a better option, he joined quicker and didn't mess up the events to badly, which meant less possibility of him causing some kind of paradox, assuming time paradoxes was a real thing. But he still didn't want to wait that long though. Yeah stopping Ocavio's plans out of the goodness of his heart was all well and good, but he kinda had to build up the life he'd had before time traveling and getting the zapfish back took a while. The faster he could get that out of the way the better.

Realistically, the best thing for him to do was to stop the theft from ever happening. He could stake out the tower and intercept DJ Octavio the moment he saw him. Heck he could even try and contact Marina. He probably couldn't convince her to defect early but if he told her he knew about the Octoling's plans she'd probably warn Octavio and that might get him to cancel the whole thing. Issue with that plan was…

He needed to fight DJ Octavio so the Octolings could hear the Calamari Inkantation. Marina needed to hear the Inkantation so she'd defect from the Octarians and meet Pearl. Agent 4 wouldn't become Agent 4 if Octavio didn't break loose and steal the Zapfish again. Furthermore, if he caused Octavio to change his plans, he might not send a group of Octos, including Agent 8, out to fight him and Cap'n Cuttlefish. If Agent 8 didn't fight him and the Cap'n, she wouldn't end up in the DeepSea Metro and she wouldn't defeat Commander Tartar.

And if Agent 8 didn't do that, the whole world was kinda boned wasn't it? So yeah, stopping the theft wasn't an option. That was definitely the main reason he couldn't stop the theft. Actual world destruction definitely wasn't taking a back seat in Agent 3's head to him being worried that he might lose the Cap'n, Callie, Marie, Agent 4, Pearl, and Marina as friends. The fact that Agent 8 was his future girlfriend wasn't coloring his decision to not stop the theft of the Inkling's primary power source at all.

He'd have to find some kind of compromise, something that let him get into the action faster with out risking the future things that needed to happen.

"' _till I figure out what to do though, May as well do some turf wars."_

Agent 3 wasn't exactly sure what to do about the future, but he was pretty sure it'd be easier to deal with if he actually had money.


	2. Chapter 2

The zapfish had been stolen, and Agent 3 felt better about that then he should have.

It wasn't good of course but it meant he could finally get rolling. Fun as turf wars were, you could only get so much enjoyment out of stomping the opposition over and over (Turns out unleashing two years' worth of skills developed from fighting military trained soldiers on regular 14 year olds didn't make for fair fights). Frankly, he only kept doing rounds because he needed the cash, both to update his clothes and eventually to get an apartment (You may call his priorities skewed, but in Inkopolis the Freshness of your style was everything).

So, with the "Great Octo Menace's" plans finally in progress, Agent 3 hopped through the manhole grate that'd lead him to the Cap'n's shack. A few twists and turns through the pipe later, and Agent 3 emerged in Octo Valley to see…

Nobody.

The Cap'n was nowhere to be seen, and the valley held that kind of genuine silence you could only get if you were really alone. A quick sweep of the area and a few knocks on the shack's door confirmed that yes, the Cap'n wasn't there. Thinking about it Agent 3 realized the Cap'n must have been investigating the Zapfish's disappearance, and that he might have jumped the gun on coming to meet the old coot so soon.

For a half hour Agent 3 sat around waiting for the Cap'n to come back, mostly refining his introduction and how he'd explain that he knew about the Octarians without having to admit he was a (involuntary) time traveler and making himself look crazy. Eventually though, he got tired of waiting and let himself into the shack. The plan was to find a radio or something to call the Cap'n, but however the old man organized the place was beyond him.

As he dug through the shack though, he came across something that would completely derail his plans of meeting the Cap'n. He found…

A plate of Crabby cakes in the fridge.

But as he scarfed one of them down, he noticed a luggage case with a familiar gleam of yellow and reflective tape peeking out, practically calling to him. Throwing open the lid Agent 3 couldn't help but grin at what he saw. The Hero Suit, in all of its safety vest and light up shoes glory. Beneath it was the Hero Shot, without it's upgrades sure, but still a welcome sight. Briefly, he wondered if what he was about to do would have any consequences for the future.

A few minutes later, as he came strolling out of the shack decked out in full Hero Gear with the Hero Shot in tow, he decided waiting was for suckers.

* * *

"Hey Gramps! What's up-"

"CALLIE! MARIE! IT'S TERRIBLE!"

Callie held the phone away and waited for her ear to stop ringing, then put it on speaker and waved Marie over.

"You want to start from the top? Without yelling-"

"IT'S THE OCTARIANS! THEY'RE BEHIND EVERYTHING!"

"Hold up," Marie interjected "When you say 'Everything' do you mean the Zapfish-"

"THEY STOLE THE GREAT ZAPFISH! RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES!"

"For Eel? I mean we all heard about it disappearing, but, the Octarians?"

"Yeah, you sure you aren't being paranoid gramps?" Callie asked.

"I AINT PARANOID! YOU AINT PARANOID IF YER RIGHT! IT'S THE OCTARIAN'S! And it's so much worse than I ever imagined it would be!"

Callie and Marie shared a glance.

"How do you mean?"

"Yeah the great Zapfish being stolen is kind of a big deal already."

"Listen to this, I went out to investigate the disappearance, I already knew in my old heart who the perpetrator had to be, but I wanted to make sure."

"Didja find proof?"

"Oh I found proof alright, but the worst part is when I came back to the valley. Marie, you remember the old outfit you wore back when I was givin' you and Callie training?"

"… you mean the thing with the safety vest?"

"Oh I remember that thing!"

"Yeah, and I remember how I got stuck with a vest over a jacket when you got a proper coat."

"Hey you got the light up shoes, I think that's a fair trade."

"Touché."

"THEY STOLE IT!" The Cap'n yelled. The news of the theft gave the cousins pause.

"… wait what?" Marie asked, confused, "You're saying the Octos stole an old jacket? Weren't you keeping that in your shack?"

"YES! While I was out investigating, those fiendish Octos must of strolled right into my home, dug their slippery little fingers through all of my possessions, and taken it! Jacket, shoes, head phones and all!"

"… Well that's… creepy." Callie said after a moment. "Did they take my stuff too?"

"No, they left that alone, but it's about the only thing they didn't touch. Every drawer, every cabinet, they looked through everything, I could tell! They even took a crabby cake from the fridge!"

"What?! No one can just go around stealing crabby cakes!" Callie said, genuinely offended.

"WELL THEY DID! But! Probably the worst part is, they took Sheldon's blaster."

"Sheldon's Blaster?"

"It was a project of his, he made to prove he was worthy of a weapons dealing permit, left it with me for safe keepin'. It's packed with some of the most high end technology, even though it's a few years old it's easily top of the line. I shudder to think of what those fiends are gonna do with it."

"I gotta say… this is actually sounding pretty bad."

Cap'n Cuttlefish tended to suspect the Octarians were behind almost all noteworthy disturbances. He insisted that he had beef with a bigshot in the Octarian army, and was convinced that they'd be coming back to get even any day now. The family had more or less written this off as paranoia, so with the public explanation of the Great Zapfish being taken down for a bath in their minds, the Squid Sisters had been pretty confident the Cap'n was being his usual conspiracy theory self. But if he was telling the truth, well, who else besides someone with a grudge would bust into your house just to steal an outfit? The gun they could understand, but an outfit?

"It's more than bad," the Cap'n said, "It's the worst. We gotta spring into action before they can do anymore harm. The world needs the Squidbeak Splatoon again! You two gotta get down here, gotta be the new Agents 1 and 2! I'd do it myself but I aint as spry as I used to be…"

"Woah hold up. Gramps, if the Octarians know where you live then first thing's first you gotta get out of there." Marie said.

"Yeah, seriously, get back to inkopolis before you get squidnapped. We'll get you a hotel. Hey we could even have like a family dinner! It's been ages since we did that."

"We don't have time for dinner! We gotta start making plans! Get our counter attack organized!"

"And we can't do any of that if you get attacked by the Octarians, can we? Just get your stuff together, Callie and me will be over there soon to get you, alright?"

The Cap'n grumbled for a moment before replying "Fine, but we're talking strategy the whole way back!"

With a click, the Cap'n hung up. Callie rose from her seat and went to get her "I'm not famous, don't look at me" outfit.

"Guess things are gonna get exiting around here, huh Marie?"

"Guess so," Marie replied, donning her face mask "Let's hope it's not too exciting."

* * *

"Carefully… carefully… Got it!"

The Octo Technician jumped back as the she got the second clamp closed securely on the Zapfish's wisker, causing an electric shield to form around it. The Zapfish looked around with wide eyes, almost looking scared… but it's eyes were always wide so it could very well not care in the slightest. The Techie walked to the edge of the elevated glass platform she stood on, and called down to the Octo squad leader down below.

"The Zapfish is plugged in! Everything's green!"

"Excelent!" The squad leader responded, before turning to an octo soldier to her right "How are the defenses coming?"

"Well on their way Ma'am. Should only take another half hour for everything to get into place." She replied.

"Good. Then that just leaves the power." The Squad leader grabbed a walkie talkie from her belt and hit the button, calling down to another techie monitoring the area's generator. "The Zapfish has been installed, how are the readings looking?"

"It's gonna take a bit for the readings to catch up to the actual power output, but I know everything down here is in working order so we should get results soon."

"The generator General Octavio used for the Great Zapfish didn't need to take 'a bit' to work." The squad leader said with an almost accusatory tone.

"Well… that Generator was a lot… newer than this one. It'll take a minute at most, I'll let you know as soon as we get readings."

"Hmph." the squad leader clipped the Walkie Talkie back onto her belt.

"So what now Ma'am?" the Techie asked from up above. "Can I come down now?"

"No, double check the pedestal, make sure everything is working right."

"I already double checked!"

"Well triple check then! We didn't go to all the trouble of stealing the zapfish just for our machinery to break down!"

"Alright, alright, Fine."

The Techie turned to inspect the machine again, inserting a pair of earbuds as she began inspecting. (Technically, you weren't supposed listen to music while working, but that was one of those rules no one, not even the disciplined Octos, ever bothered to enforce).

The Squad leader shook her head. "I swear Techies get lazier every day."

"Uh, permission to ask a question, ma'am?"

"What is it soldier?"

"Is the last line of defense just an elevated platform?"

"No, we'll have vaults and troopers down here once everything is set up."

"Just troopers? No soldiers?"

"Just troopers. Why?"

"Just thought they'd spare more defenses for something so important."

"You shouldn't be such a critic; the defenses were planned by General Octavio himself, you know."

"T-they were? Uh, 'cause you know I wasn't trying to criticize the plan, or anything," The soldier said nervously "I'm just, uh, trying to understand it is all."

The Squad Leader stared at the Soldier critically for a moment, letting her squirm, before looking up to the Zapfish.

"The defenses will be bulked in time. Before that we have to make sure all the Zapfish are installed, and that the domes are getting electricity."

"… That makes sense, but what if we get attacked? I have faith in our defenses of course, but we aren't using our best here, you know?"

"We have plenty of time. The inklings, ignorant as they are, won't think to check Octo Valley for a long while yet, and by the time they do we'll have enough defenses set up to repel them. Not to mention, Inklings are hedonists who spend all day playing games and chasing clothing trends. With such a lack of discipline, it'd take a thousand Inklings to defeat us."

"Wanna bet?" a voice chimed in from behind.

The Soldier and the Squad Leader spun around and saw an Inkling casually strolling towards them.

"I think it'll only take one."

* * *

The Techie casually crouched down and flipped open a panel on the pedestal's base, pretending to check the internal parts. In truth, she'd finished her triple check a while ago, and was just waiting for her current play of "Eight-Legged Advance" to finish.

" _If the leader wanted me to hurry, she should have been a little nicer about it."_

The Techie was roused from her pretend work when she felt something slam onto the platform behind her. She expected the Squad Leader, and thus was also expecting to get yelled at for taking too long. Suffice to say she was surprised when she turned around and saw an Inkling pointing a tricked out Splattershot at her face. He looked at her with a very, very uncomfortably cold look on his face.

With wide eyes, shaking hands, and an amount of sweat rolling off her face some might describe as "profuse", the Techie slowly removed her ear buds. For a few very uncomfortable moments the two stared at each other, until finally the Inkling took a step to the side and gestured away from the platform with his Splattershot. She stared a moment, and then carefully rose to her feet. She took a tentative step forwards. The inkling didn't do anything, he just kept staring. She took another. Still nothing. She took a third-

"SCRAM!" the Inkling yelled, and the Techie took off as fast as she could, jumping off of the platform and bolting in the opposite direction of the Inkling and the Zapfish.

Agent 3 watched her go, then turned and fired ink at the Zapfish's electrical barrier till it burst.

"I don't know about you, But I think a change of scenery is in order." Agent 3 said as he Removed the Zapfish from the pedestal. "These domes are kind of a dump."

" _Not that that's the Octo's fault exactly, but I'll save improving the Octoling's living conditions for after I get the Zapfish back. I can't save the city and work on race relations at the same time."_

* * *

Agent 3 emerged in the Valley, Zapfish held under his arm, and called out,

"Anyone there?"

Agent 3 received no response. He walked up to the Cap'n's shack and knocked on the door with the bottom of the Hero Shot.

"Anyone home? I got a Zapfish."

Still nothing, so Agent 3 let himself inside. He set the Zapfish down on the bed. The Zapfish glanced around the room, then set itself to wriggling on the sheets to get comfy.

"I have no idea where the Cap'n is, but I can't stick around and wait for him. I got to take advantage of the fact that the Octo's defenses aren't fully set up. If he doesn't show up for whatever reason I know where to take you, so till then just chill here for a bit, okay?"

The Zapfish looked at him… and that's about all it did.

"Good talk."

Agent 3 stepped out of the shack and set out for the next kettle.

* * *

 **Notes. Meant to do these for the first chapter but forgot, so here. The Ending of chapter feels kind of weak but, to me at least, it feels like it took too long as is to get this finished, so i'm not gonna stall.**

 **As with I think most Splatoon fics I'm making liberal use of Head cannons to fill in the** **gaps in the lore and events. I'll also warn I never played the first Splatoon, I do know the plot and I have beaten the story mode of Splatoon 2, and the Octo expansion. For everything in the first Splatoon i'll be using a full play through on youtube and the Splatoon wiki to help me out in that regard, but if I screw up any of the smaller details let me know.**

 **Part of why I'm writing this is for fun, but I'm also doing it to practice my writing, so if you have a minute to spare let me know what i'm doing wrong/right in the reviews, i'd appreciate it. Speaking of which, i'm not sure how easy to read the conversation between Callie, Marie, and Captain Cuttlefish is, so if nothing else let me know about that.**

 **This story isn't supposed to be too long, and i'm gonna keep events moving at a fast pace, so if you're expecting me to slow down and wax lyrical on the "Deep Lore" of Splatoon that's not going to happen.**

 **Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the story so far.**


	3. Chapter 3

"… So what your telling me is, **one** Inkling, ripped through three domes, defeated the Octostomp, and stole back four Zapfish?"

The Octoling, who wished she could be anywhere besides where she was, gulped, "Y-yes sir, General Octavio."

"And he did this… **a day** , after we took the Zapfish?"

"Yes sir."

"And this one Inkling wasn't a part of any army? Special forces? Anything?"

"N-no sir, according to eye witness reports, he had no identifiable uniform."

"And he was young?"

"Uh, a-according to reports he did appear y-young, sir. Early teens, it's been guessed."

The General remained silent for a moment, considering the information, then leaned forwards, his eyes never leaving the Octo soldier before him.

"So for all intents and purposes, it appears that a random **boy** caught onto our plan **immediately** after it was enacted, despite the tacticians and myself believing it would take the Inklings **weeks** before they considered us as culprits, and tore through our defenses, and defeated a **Great Octoweapon**. All within one day. Am I understanding this right?"

The Octoling shook under Octavio's piercing glare. "I-it w-would appear so, s-sir."

Octavio remained silent. Mercifully he leaned back into his chair. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He held in the breath and remained silent… then slammed a tentacle onto his desk, making the Octoling jump.

" **UNNACEPTABLE!** " Octavio yelled, punctuating it with another slam on the table, "We are Octarians! We are the **Greatest!** The **Strongest!** The **Coolest!** This is an insult to **ME!** An insult to **YOU!** An insult **to EVERYONE AND THEIR MOMMAS!** "

With his rant over, Octavio went quiet besides his deep breathing. His angry eyes remained locked on the Octoling, who stood there nervously, unsure what to say and **very** unwilling to break the silence.

"… **This aint gonna fly.** What rank are you?"

"Uh, just a c-corpral, sir!"

"Well then, this order is going out to everyone. You get to hear it first, so make sure everyone you command hears this. We're beefing up security in the domes. Traps, ambushes, **small armies,** I don't care! That Inkopolis **scum** , who thinks he can waltz through our homes taking whatever he likes, is going to be stopped as soon as he dares show his face again! **Understand?"**

The Octoling quickly saluted "Yes sir!"

"Good! Now get outta here!"

The Octoling turned all but ran out of the office. Octavio leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms… er, tentacles.

"… You think I don't know you're behind this, Cuttlefish? I don't know how you figured us out so quick, but I'm not letting you win this. Who ever you've sent to do your work, I'm gonna stomp 'em into nothing. **And you'll be next."**

* * *

"Hey mom, what's up?"

" _Just wanted to see how my little Squid Kid is doing since he moved out. How have things been? Did you find an apartment or have you been in a hotel searching for one?"_

"No I found a place west of the plaza."

Not technically a lie, Agent 3 did find a place (The apartments he used to live in, in fact). She didn't ask if he was living there or not.

 _"Very nice! Having any trouble with the furniture? Because if you need help moving things your father has been complaining about being idle lately."_

"No no, I uh… got a pre-furnished place, I'm good."

" _That's nice. How's the furniture quality? I know some places go really cheap with what they give their tenants."_

"It's not bad. The bed's actually surprisingly comfortable."

The park bench, that is. The bench in the park across from the apartments he used to live in he was using as a bed was surprisingly comfortable. For a park bench.

" _Well that's good. How many turf wars have you won? I'm sure you've been doing quite a few now that you don't have to ask us for permission."_

"Oh, I've got a bit of a winning streak going." He said, a hint of smug in his voice.

Bit of an understatement, considering he hadn't lost one match in the 3 days he'd been in the plaza.

" _That's great! I guess I should keep an eye on the rankings, see how long it takes for you to become a start player!_

"Eh… I wouldn't go that far. I'm kinda focusing on work at the moment."

" _Oh… really? I mean, it's nice for you to be working, but don't you think you're too young to be worrying about a career?"_

"Nah, Dad said it was never too soon to think about the future. 'Sides, I like what I do, so no biggie."

" _Well, I suppose it's probably easier to pay rent with a job instead of Turf war winnings. What are you doing for work?"_

"Oh… uh… I'm a… Weapons tester. Yeah."

" _Weapons tester? I wasn't aware they let people your age test weapons."_

They didn't.

"They do, I mean if they let us use them for Turf Wars what's the harm in testing them out right? Just had to sign some paper work and everything was A-Ok."

" _Hmm… Well alright. I'm glad to hear you're being responsible, but don't let work get in the way of the rest of your life. I know how important Turf Wars are to you, I'd hate to see your dream get pushed to the side."_

"Oh… well… thanks. Don't worry, I'm just getting things out of the way so I have more time for the stuff I want to do, you know?"

" _So responsible! I swear the moment you decided you wanted to move out it was like a switch got flipped. You used to be so aloof."_

"Heh, yeah well, you gotta take responsibility sometime right? Anyways speaking of responsibility, I gotta go to work."

" _Oh alright. Have a nice day, don't forget to call us every now and again!"_

"Sure thing. See ya."

Agent 3 ended the call and stuck his phone into his pocket. He thought about the conversation.

"' _My Dream'? Did I care about Turf Wars that much? I guess that WAS the reason I moved out the first time. But then I ran into the Cap'n, and then I was all about being on the Squidbeak Splatoon. Is it weird that I set everything aside for fighting DJ Octavio and his goonies?"_

Agent 3 shrugged and hopped of the bench that had been his bed for the past few days and made his way towards Octo Valley.

"Whatever, back to the daily grind."

* * *

Callie and Marie entered Cap'n Cuttlefish's hotel room.

"We're back! We got Brunch!" Callie called out, making a b-line for the desk so she could start eating.

"Still don't get why we all couldn't have eaten at the restaurant but whatever." Marie added.

If you wanted to get technical "Brunch" was basically the same as breakfast for Inklings, since in Inkling society people who got up at 9 AM were considered early risers.

Cap'n Cuttlefish, who was sitting on the hotel bed, didn't respond, being too busy staring at an old looking phone with a furrowed brow.

"Something wrong?" Marie asked, "Get a prank call?"

The Cap'n kept staring, Wheels in his head trying to spin but unable too, before looking up at them and saying,

"just gotta call from a friend. Four Zapfish showed up at the powerplant."

Callie, who had already started shoveling pancakes in her mouth, paused

"Wreawwy?" she asked around the food.

The Cap'n nodded "Just found 'em in front of the building, safe and sound. I got an old friend from the war in the government helping me keep tabs on the situation, said they don't know how they got there."

"So, what?" Marie asked "The Octolings stole them and gave a few back?"

"It doesn't make a lick of sense. That's what's got me so confused."

"Think the Octos had a change of heart?" Callie suggested.

"Not a chance." the Cap'n replied.

"Maybe they were booby trapped?" Marie suggested.

"Nope, they gave them a full check up after they were returned. The zapfish are fine."

Marie looked to the side and tried to think of an answer, before giving up

"I got nothing then."

Callie 'hmm'ed' as she chewed up another piece of pancake, before swallowing,

"Maybe someone else stole them back?" she suggested

The Cap'n let out a frustrated sigh

"That's the only explanation that makes sense. Issue is I don't know who coulda done it! No one should know about the Octos stealing the zapfish but us!"

"If it was someone else it'd probably be an inkling, right?" Marie asked

"Maybe it's an Octo? Like a rebellious Octo?"

"Who ever it is," The Cap'n said jumping to his feet, "We gotta find them! Let's get down to Octo Valley, you two can head through the Kettles, and I'll be Mission Control."

"Uh gramps?"

"Let's move!"

The Cap'n moved for the door but was stopped by Marie grabbing him by the shoulder

"Gramps! We can't just drop everything and go to Octo Valley."

"Yeah we got to do our show in like an hour." Callie added.

"Your show!? Girls we're talking about the fate of Inkopolis here!"

"And I get that," Marie said as she led the Cap'n back to the bed, "But we can't tell our producers that, and if we just start skipping days we'll get fired."

"And even if we did tell the producers, and the producer's believed us somehow, they'd just tell the police, and the police would tell the government, and the government probably won't let 2 pop stars be secret agents. Also, it might cause a war? Marie is a foreign government stealing a city's only power source a cause for war?"

"We probably don't want to chance it."

The Cap'n let out another frustrated sigh as he sat back down on the bed. "Alright, alright. Fine. You girls are right. I can't just expect you to put your lives on hold, and the war happening would be bad. But we can't just sit here and do nothing either! The Octo menace isn't going to go away if we ignore it long enough."

"Well… considering we just got back 4 zapfish back, maybe it will?" Callie asked, "I mean don't get me wrong, we should probably do something about it, but so far nothing bad has happened and the situation has actually gotten better, so, maybe there isn't a rush?"

The Cap'n opened his mouth to protest, but paused before any sound could come out. He looked at the floor, suddenly stuck in deep contemplation, apparently finding it difficult to comprehend that Inkopolis wasn't in as much danger as he thought. Marie patted him on the shoulder.

"We'll deal with it later. For now, you gonna eat your brunch or what?"

* * *

When telling a story, there are parts you skip. Like, you don't tell people every time one of your characters goes to the bathroom, most of the time you don't mention them having to "go" at all, you just let people assume that they're doing it off camera. Similarly, whenever Agent 3 gave a report, or regaled his friends with tales of his exploits, he'd usually skip the walk back since it was kind of lame.

Case in point, with all threats taken care of and unable to super jump back while holding the Zapfish, Agent 3 was stuck trying to continue the most one-sided conversation imaginable as he walked to the exit.

"So I'm thinking I should get my cape back. I probably won't be able to get one that removes the limiter on my specials, but I think the style points would justify it well enough, you know?"

The Zapfish held under his arm stared at him for a second before going back to looking around randomly. It was kind of hard to gauge what a Zapfish was thinking about, they tended to look at everything like a deer in the headlights.

" _*sigh*_ … Weird that the Cap'n hasn't been around, right? What's up with that? You'd think he'd be monitoring Octo Valley, but it's been 2 days and I haven't seen him at all. Hope the old coot hasn't gotten into trouble. Or since I'm messing with the time stream, I hope **I** haven't gotten the old coot into trouble. That'd suck."

Agent 3 reached the final, well technically the first platform in the Dome (lacking the proper name for it, it'd been nick named the Propeller-Lift Playground). As he hopped down from a height that probably would have snapped the ankles of any creature that actually had bones, he heard a noise and stopped.

 _"That sounded like… a super jump?"_

Agent 3 looked skyward and saw 4 trails streaking through the sky. A second later they landed a few feet in front of him, splattering purple ink on the ground and revealing 4 octo soldiers, all of whom immediately pointed their Splattershots at him

"Well that's new…"

"INKLING!" an Octoling yelled.

"Octoling." Agent 3 responded.

"Drop the zapfish! Drop your weapons! And surrender immediately!"

"Make me."

"Don't tempt us!"

"Surrender now and we'll keep the manhandling to a minimum." Another Octoling added

Agent 3 chuckled, "Heh, as tempting as getting manhandled by pretty ladies is, I'm already spoken for, so I gotta pass."

"You don't seem to comprehend the situation you're in, Inkopolis scum. We have you outnumbered and outgunned. And we're only the vanguard, reinforcements are on their way as we speak. Not to mention each dome is having its defenses upgraded. Your little one-man campaign ends here." She sneered, "Got anything to say to that?"

"Hmm…" Agent 3 tapped the muzzle of the Hero Shot against his chin. "All I can say is… knowing the odds are against me… I think you'll blush a pretty pink when I beat all of you anyway."

The Octoling just glared at him. Then she smirked and started chuckling.

"Remember this for the report girls, the peaceful option failed and we were forced to utilize extreme, **painful** force to apprehend the subject."

Agent 3 readied his stance, secured his grip on the Zapfish, it's pupils darting between him and the foes before him, and aimed the Hero Shot at the Octolings. They stared at each other for a moment, waiting for the other to make the first move. Finally, he broke the silence:

"Alright... **let's dance**."

* * *

 **Man this chapter took way longer to finish than I wanted. I apologize for** **that, Finals at school and other obligations arose out of the ether and I didn't have time to work on it like I wanted. And I hate to say it but I'm gonna have to go on another Hiatus due to holiday plans. I'll be without a computer or stable internet for 2 weeks, so I won't be able to post anything.**

 **Initially the chapter was supposed to be a bit longer, but I wanted to get something posted before I lost the opportunity. As a result the ending once again feels kind of weak to me, but it was this or nothing so what can you do?**

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**


	4. Chapter 4

Agent 3 awoke to the sun on his face, the sounds of the city in his ears, and some kid poking him with a stick. He cracked an eye open, immediately shut it when the sun started stabbing his retinas, and eased it open into a squint.

The Kid kept looking at him in the vacant way kids did as Agent 3 lifted himself into a sitting position. The kid was young, at least 8 years old.

"Why're you sleepin' on a bench?"

The kid asked as Agent 3 rubbed his eyes.

"Too busy to buy a house. Why are you poking people with sticks?"

"To lazy to find friends."

"Hmph. Why don't you go bother someone else, I gotta stop the existential dread from setting in."

"My mom has to do that too, she says she drowns it in coffee."

"Smart Mom. Go bother her instead of me."

"Okay, bye homeless guy!"

The kid ran off.

"Bye random kid."

Agent 3 stretched, wincing as the motion aggravated his bruises. Say what you want about Octolings, they knew how to kick. Speaking of which, that Octo chick from yesterday wasn't kidding when she said they were bettering their security. More traps, more barricades, and more troopers. Heck, there were even more Octoling Soldiers out on patrol. He still got another 2 zapfish (for a total of 5) before the day was done, but still.

 _"Must have spooked them into early action…"_

He kind of did this last time. The Octo's had made things harder for him as he gathered more and more zapfish, but it hadn't been this fast, or this dramatic a change. And it was probably only going to get worse as time went on.

It was irritating for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that it would slow him down. Granted he already had a pretty great head start on things, having started 5 days early and retrieved 9 zapfish by his second day (For refrence, last time he had 4 on his second day thanks to the cap'n limiting him to two kettels each day). But that was due to him catching the octo's off-guard and unprepared. Now he didn't have either advantage and there was no telling what the Octos would set up now that they were panicked. Depending on how hard the Octolings pushed back, he might be forced to cut down on the amount of zapfish he retrieved.

Which sucked because the longer this took the less time he had to build up his old life. Furniture, reputation, turf war ranking, it was a lot to work on and DJ Octavio's schemes were really distracting. Not helping was the lack of support from his friends.

Agent 3 grimmaced at the thought. His friends… he was really starting to miss them.

The Cap'n and the Squid Sisters weren't too bad, he figured they were around somewhere and he'd meet them around soon enough. But meeting Agent 4 and Off the Hook would take another two years minimum. And then Agent 8…

Agent 8 actually hurt to think about.

They'd been cuddling when they went to bed, and then he woke up and she was gone. The fact that he wouldn't get to see her for another 2 years was just salt in the wound. And for extra fun, he was also worried that getting back together would be difficult since their relationship had started thanks mostly to chance and in spite of problems that by rights probably should have restricted them to friends at best.

She had moved in with him because she needed somewhere to stay and Cap'n Cuttlefish elected agent 3 for the job by the virtue of him being there at the time. He'd thought she was weird at first, not because she didn't understand his society, but because of how skittish around him she was. How she'd walk on eggshells around him as if he'd rip her head off the moment she displeased him. He'd thought he was being nice enough, but she'd just never seemed comfortable when they were in the same room.

Eventually he asked her point blank if she wanted to move in with someone else. She hurriedly said she wanted to stay, and looked disappointed the rest of the day. Next morning she said she "Had to do something," and disappeared for hours over the next 3 days. Then one day she came back with a golden toothpick tucked behind her ear and suddenly everything was fine, and she was trying harder than ever to be his friend.

From there they'd found out they liked the same things, they got more familiar and comfortable around each other, fell for each other at some point, and decided eventually to be a couple, and It wasn't until a month in their relationship that she explained her behavior (Agent 3 made a point to mind his own business, he never felt the need to ask what was up with Agent 8 if everything had been worked out). Apparently, while she couldn't remember anything, her instincts remembered him as someone to be feared. He was the boogie man of the Octolings that had single-handedly ended Octavio's plans and had pushed her, one of the most highly trained Octo Soldiers alive, to the limit of her abilities to keep up with him in a fight. Logically she knew he wasn't going to hurt her, instinctually she always felt nervous.

She'd been disappointed when he asked if she wanted to move out because she knew the phobia was illogical, but was still failing at getting over it even though he'd been nice and she was really trying. Those days she disappeared she was going to the metro, where she would look at the golden toothpick and confront a phantom version of him in her mind. Eventually she defeated the Inner Agent 3, and was able to put the fear behind her.

The explanation had perturbed Agent 3. He wasn't flattered to know that being afraid of him was a cultural thing for the Octolings, and the knowledge that she'd essentially had a phobia of him for weeks while having to live in his house had kind of disturbed him. It had taken him a while to stop asking if she was sure she wanted to date the guy who gave her PTSD.

Still, they got past all of that… weirdness, and for the next 4 months he finally understood why everyone wanted romance so much. Just being around her was a comfort. She made him happy, he did whatever he could to make her happy, and he had more fun with her than he'd ever had before. Then he was somehow sent back in time. Now she's gone and to get her back he'd have to try and make happen on purpose what had relied on happenstance. Agent 8 _happened_ to be at the base He and the Cap'n stormed. By _chance_ she had fallen into the metro and lost her memories. The Deep Sea Metro Incident wasn't something anyone planned, and he wasn't sure if he could make that happen again. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he lost Agent 8...

"…Okay, now I'm just making myself depressed."

Agent 3 sighed and stood up off the bench. He checked his phone for the time.

"9:17 AM. Breakfast time."

Agent 3 set off for the Plaza. Despite trying to set the melancholy thoughts behind him the feelings lingered. Agent 3 tried to push those away but couldn't quite manage it, so he decided to go easy on himself.

" _You know what, let's start late today. I'll get breakfast, then I'll do something else."_

But what else? Turf war? Nah. Shopping? Sure, but that wouldn't last very long. What to do, what to do…

" _Hmm… You know, the Squid Sisters won't be on for another couple hours, and Callie did show me how to sneak into the studio…"_

Agent 3 smirked. What was the point of going back in time if you didn't mess with people?

* * *

"Judd is great at his job, but… man, he sleeps a lot."

"I hear he's way more active at night!"

The latest news cast was going well, Marie thought. Nothing really to report besides an update on the Great Zapfish. No one wanted to admit that it had been stolen until they had to, so while they looked for it the excuse reported from on high had been that the Great Zapfish had been taken down for a bath. Then the excuse was that the transport vehicle had broken down. And now today's excuse was that the driver got sick. Marie felt kinda stupid for having to report that when she knew the truth of things, but whatever.

"And now, the current ranked battle stages!"

"Splatastic!"

The first stage was Walleye Warehouse. Callie adopted a serious look and began reading her little story from the teleprompter. A perk of being the stars of their show was the ability to write their own responses for the stages.

"In a remote corner of a dimly lit warehouse… two brave inklings prepare to meet their destin-"

"They're boppin' squiddles, aren't they- W-wait-"

"Dude!"

Marie blushed and covered her mouth. That was **not** what she wrote in her script. Callie looked at her with a shocked expression. Couldn't blame her, in Inkling society "Boppin' Squiddles" was a pretty dang crass bit of euphemism, used by adults and edgy preteens alike. Not really something you were supposed to say on a live show for all ages.

"Why would you say that!?" Callie asked

"I- Th-That- That's what was on the Teleprompter!"

"There is no way that was on the Telepro-" Callie froze when she read the prompter, "WHY IS THAT ON THE TELEPROMPTER!?"

* * *

 **Sorry to interject but I feel compelled to mention that "Boppin Squiddles" is a real bit of slang I found, not something I made up. I would have tried to make a more clever joke, but come on, "Boppin Squiddles".**

* * *

The live feed of Squid Sisters cut out to a charming image of a cartoon Jellyfish trying to fix a busted TV, with the words "Technical difficulties, please stand by" below it. Agent 3 laughed along with a lot of other Inklings, but his laugh was enhanced with the satisfaction of a job well done. That job being changing Marie's script. She had once mentioned that she never checked if her scripts were edited after she turned them in for review and just read whatever was on the prompter without thinking about it. Bet she was regretting that now! Yeah it was juvenile, but he got a celebrity to say something crass on live TV and that was more than most people could say.

All in all, it's been a good day, sans the kid poking him with a stick. Good breakfast (By fast food standards), no trouble sneaking into the studio, and when he got spotted by a random producer on his way out the producer assumed he was an intern and gave him 20 bucks to buy him an overly fancy latte. Agent 3 used that 20 bucks to buy a Takoroka Mesh, now he just needed to find an Inkling Forge Parka and some Pro-trail boots and he'd have his old look back.

 _"But that's a problem for later."_ Agent 3 thought as he walked to the Octo Valley Entrance.

Agent 3's mood was fixed and the bad thoughts were now somewhere far, far away. Which meant it was time for work.

* * *

A while after the Squid Sisters latest episode was over, Marie was stuck on the phone.

"No mom, of course I didn't mean to say that. Why would I want to say that? I'm not trying to get fired."

As Marie's mom replied, Marie took a moment to shoot a glare at Callie, sitting across from her, who was making exactly zero effort to hide her amusement.

"What? No mom, just because I watched Late Night TV as a kid doesn't mean I'd say stuff like that on air. You were the one who let me watch Late Night TV anyways why are you criticizing me?"

* * *

Agent 3 ducked behind a corner, catching his breath. Off in the distance he could hear an Octoling shouting something to their troops. It was now safe to say he pushed his advantage as far as he could. The Octolings, evidentially, had spent all night setting up their defenses and now Agent 3 was having significantly more trouble. In addition to having to dodge the Inkstrikes, he also had to fight against more Octo troopers and too many Octo Soldiers for comfort. He was starting to think he maybe shouldn't have attacked them so hard, they might have taken things easier that way.

An Inkstrike struck down nearby Agent 3, making him flinch.

 _"Son of a, Octo Striker's trying to flush me out."_

Octo Strikers were annoying enough without everything else he was dealing with. He was pretty sure the skate park they were in were abandoned, but honestly how the heck did no once notice the UFO, and the dozen of soldiers hiding out here. It was **in Inkopolis** for goodness sake.

Agent 3 sighed "Alright, what's next?"

Agent 3 leaned around the corner. Up next was a fence, and beyond that sort of pit filled with purple ink.

"Oh great. Wonder if that's filled with people who don't like me."

Agent 3 took a moment to regret his choice of career, then chucked a splatbomb over the fence. Two Octodivers rose up out of the ink and tried to drive away, but they weren't fast enough and were splatted as the bomb went off. Agent 3 slipped through the fence in his Squid form, and jumped down into the pit, firing the Heroshot to create safe spots in the hostile Ink. As soon has his feet hit the ground Octodivers and Octo Soldiers jumped out of the ink and rushed him. Agent 3 didn't back down.

"COME GET SOME!"

* * *

" _Marie! Put the phone on-"_

"Gramps, I swear if you're gonna yell at me about today's show…"

" _What? No, but keep that mouth clean from now on. I'm calling about an update to the Octo situation, put the phone on speaker so Callie can hear about it."_

"Oh, gotcha. Yo Callie! gramps has an update, get over here."

Marie put the phone on speaker and set it on the table as Callie walked over.

"So, what's up?"

" _What's up is that another 5 Zapfish were dropped off at the powerplant."_

"No kidding?" Callie asked, "Jeez, this problem really is solving itself. Did they see who did it?"

" _No, they tried but the mystery person dropped them off somewhere they weren't looking."_

"So, besides some new Zapfish, we're still at square one basically?" Marie asked.

" _Well, unfortunately yes. We at least know whoever's retrieving them is skilled. They'd have to fight against a lot of Octolings for every Zapfish they got back."_

"They show up, grab the zapfish, and then leave. You'd think they'd ask for money or something." Callie said.

"Maybe they already have money and just need something to do."

"A rich person with no day job doing hero stuff…" Callie smiled and snapped her fingers "Got it, we're looking for a comic book super hero!"

" _Well, if it wasn't a hypothetical they would be. But that there's part of the issue, all we got is hypotheticals! I don't like knowing so little about something so important."_

"I feel you," said Marie. "But what can we do?"

" _Well if we could get some feet on the ground to investigate…"_

"We still have work, gramps."

" _I know! But you could take some time off. I've been scouting for a recruit but no one has caught my eye…"_

"Whoa what? Are you just out there giving everyone a sales pitch?" Callie questioned.

"That sounds like a good way to get arrested, gramps…"

" _I haven't been out preaching. I've been hanging around the entrance to Octo Valley, keeping an eye out for anyone that I think might be the kind of squid we need to take on this threat."_

"That's… still kinda creepy. And also, what kind of person would look at an old guy they don't know staring at them and just decide to follow them?"

* * *

Agent 3 super jumped away from the Octonozzle. He hit the ground and looked up as the Octonozzle recovered and sprouted a new pattern of sucker cups from the openings on its body, prepped for another round. He also saw that another batch of Octolings were super jumping into the arena from the other side of the walls. Octolings he hadn't had to deal with the first time. Agent 3 let out a frustrated sigh.

"Why did I follow Cap'n Cuttlefish all those years ago? Why did I do this to myself?"

* * *

 _"I know it's not ideal, but somethings gotta be done! I will not be stuck on the sidelines while there is a fight to win!"_

"Yeah but maybe you could do something that wouldn't get you arrested?" Marie suggested.

"Gramps, tell you what, stop with the creepy recruiting, and we'll see if we can get off early tomorrow and do some secret agent stuff, alright?"

 _"You will?"_

"We will?" Marie asked.

"Sure, it's the fate of Inkopolis after all! And it keeps people from calling the cops!"

 _"Well, alright then! Deal! Let me know when you two get off work tomorrow, I'll get the plans sorted out!"_

"Uh no guarantee we'll get the early day gramps-"

The phone clicked, and Marie doubted that he heard her at all.

"Well, so much for buying a new toaster tomorrow."

"Ah come on Marie, doesn't helping to save the city sound more fun than buying a toaster?"

"Well, I generally don't get shot at when I buy a toaster, so..."

Callie shrugged with a smile "The danger makes it more fun?"

Marie stared at her for a moment, then smiled in spite of herself.

"You sure got a way with words, Callie. Alright, I'll do my part to help the city. If nothing else I have to make sure you don't get Splatted."

"Hey now, it may have been a while since I used my Roller, but I still got sick skills. You still know how to use a charger?"

"You know it. At least you better hope so, otherwise you and/or me are gonna get wrecked down there."

"You're always so negative. You're cynical about us helping the city, before this you were saying dirty euphemisms all over our family friendly show…"

"Shut up."

* * *

Agent 3 walked up to the next series of Inkrails in an area that had been dubbed the "Inkrail Skyscape". He remembered this bit, he had to jump up the 3 rails to get to the top of the elevated platform. Why the Octo's hadn't just made stairs was a question he doubted would ever be answered. Agent 3 activated the rails and prepared to jump into them and begin his ascent-

"Stop right there Inkopolis Scum!" a strangely young sounding voice called out from above.

Agent 3 looked up to the top and saw…

"What the heck…?"

Up above was 5 small, odd looking Octolings, all of them a different primary color. After a moment of perplexed staring, he realized he was looking at Octo children, too young to assume a proper humanoid shape. The one in the center stepped forward, allowing Agent 3 to see how awkwardly he was holding his Octoshot. Starting in the center, and alternating from left to right, they all yelled:

" **Red!"**

" **Blue!"**

" **Green!"**

" **Yellow!"**

" **Pink!"**

"Together we are the…" the red one, and Agent 3 guessed their leader, yelled, before in unison they all shouted,

" **CEPHALOPOD 5!"**

They all stood there, looking angry and bold. Well, as bold as a group of literal children could look. Agent 3… couldn't really do anything besides stare.

"You better get ready Inkling!" The main Octo kid, Red, called out, "We're gonna take you down!"

Agent 3 tried to come up with something to say, failed, and so defaulted to,

"…What?"

"I said, we're gonna take-"

"Yeah, yeah I heard you but… why… why are you here?"

"To take you down!" Yelled Yellow.

"I got that part but… you're all kids. Why are you kids trying to fight me?"

"Like you don't know!" Red called out. "You're beating up all our soldiers! Stealing our zapfish!"

"Yeah but… wait, did Octavio send you?"

Agent 3 hated Octavio for a lot of reasons, and he thought the hate had been maxed out when he learned about Callie's kidnapping, but if Octavio was sending out child soldiers, Agent 3 was pretty sure he could find room for a little more hate. Granted he and the rest of the soldiers were all teenagers, but at least they were far enough in development to have hands.

"Well, no," Oh thank goodness. "but once we bag you the Great General will probably make us super soldiers!"

"If Octavio didn't send you, who did? Are you even supposed to be here?"

"Doesn't matter! Yesterday my big sis said she got splatted by you! So even if we aren't supposed to, I decided we had to do our part! So I gathered up all my friends, and we formed the **Cephalopod 5!** "

"Yeah! And now we're here to beat you up!" added Green.

Ah, okay, now things were making sense. Sort of. Actually Agent 3 kind of felt bad about the kid's sister… wait, no he didn't, she was trying to splat him too why should he feel bad? But the kids, yes. They were just mad and wanted to be cool. Maybe they also wanted to help, but mostly they probably just wanted to be cool, kids were like that. Kids were also stupid, as evidence by their entire plan.

"Okay, that's cute and all, but this isn't a fight you can win."

"What do you know! We'll kick your butt!"

The other kids gave a determined "Yeah!" in unison.

"No, no, I'm not even trying to mock you, it is literally impossible for you 5 to beat me in a straight fight."

"No it isn't! We're tough, we'll take you out!"

"You're like 10. You barely have thumbs."

"11 ½! And we don't need fingers to beat you up!"

Another chorus of "Yeah!" from the other kids.

"Ugh," Agent 3 rubbed his eyes, "Look, is your sister stronger than you?"

The question seemed to throw Red off his groove, "Huh? Well, yeah! Big sis is the best and strongest!"

"My big brothers strongest…" Blue murmured

"What!?" Red looked like he was about to argue with Blue but Agent 3 cut him off.

"If your big sister is stronger than you, and I beat up a lot of people who are as strong as she is, what makes you think you can beat me?"

The kids went quiet. They looked unsure now, Red was looking off to the side, trying to puzzle out his own logic, and the other kids were glancing nervously at one another. Hopefully they'd get the right idea and leave, every part of their plan was building them up for failure. They weren't even the same color for cod's sake. Inklings on a team didn't choose the same color just because it was in the rule book. Using the same color let them know who was on their team at a glance, and you can't be hurt by ink that's the same color as your own, so it prevented friendly fire. These kids would shoot themselves long before they shot him.

Red came to a conclusion, but given the angry scowl on his face Agent 3 had a feeling it was the wrong one.

"Whatever!" Red called out, "We're the strongest team ever! We'll take you down and bring you back to the great General! **Cephalopod 5! Charge!** "

The kids all jumped at him from way up high, Red's order and childhood overconfidence making the other kids forget their doubts. Now, **could** Agent 3 beat up kids? Yes, easily. **Would** Agent 3 beat up kids?

"Forget this."

Agent 3 ran forwards and jumped into the rails while the kids were in mid air. By the time they hit the ground he had jumped up to the top.

"Take this Inkl- Huh? HEY!"

Agent 3 jumped into the launch pad and took off.

" _Is this what my life is now?"_ Agent 3 thought to himself as he flew through the air. _"First time travel, now this?"_

Agent 3 hit the ground and ran forward, wanting to be out of there incase the kids tried to follow him.

" _You know what, after this I'm taking the rest of the day off. I need to mentally prepare myself before things get weirder."_

* * *

 **So here's this. Took me long enough, huh?**

 **The higher functions of my brain tells me the "Boppin' Squiddles" bit isn't actually that funny, but I like the phrase "Boppin' Squiddles" too much to come up with something different.**

 **A reviewer by the name of PenguinWithAHat explained that they didn't like Agent 3X8, and that inspired that bit in the beginning that explained how their relationship came to be, so thanks to them for the inspiration.**

 **Next chapter hopefully coming faster than this one. No set date for updates, I know better than to promise anything.**

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**


	5. Chapter 5

Marie leaned against Cap'n Cuttlefish's shack, next to her charger and Callie's Roller, waiting for her cousin to get the headphones the Cap'n had told them to get. As luck would have it, they had gotten the rest of the day off after the news broadcast and so had made their way to Octo Valley right after, wearing their incognito outfits. For Marie, incognito was a baseball cap, a doctor's face mask, a green sweatshirt, the same shorts everyone wore, and some average looking green sneakers. Callie had gone in with a beanie with a little star on it, a pink jacket over a white and black shirt, the same shorts everyone wore (Seriously whatever company made those must have cornered the shorts market hard), and some pink Sneakers, though Marie figured Callie would ditch the beanie to wear the headphones.

Marie heard the door nob turn, and kicked off the wall just as Callie emerged from the shack. Marie was right about Callie ditching the beanie, but she hadn't expected Callie to ditch the rest of her outfit as well. Callie was now wearing the headphones, along with a yellow jacket with the shoulders and arms covered in a reflective material, and a pair of black and orange snow boots.

"Found em'!" Callie said in a happy tone.

"I was wondering why you were taking so long. Why'd you put on the whole outfit?"

"Well, why not?"

"…Well, I guess I can't argue with that. But still, you haven't worn that since you were like, what, 14? I'm surprised that fits so well."

"It's a little tight in some places, but I'd say it's still stylin'. Now, let's see if I can find that button gramps was talking about." Callie said as she ran her fingers along the sides of the headphones.

Callie and Marie had worn the outfits back when they first turned 14 and the Cap'n was teaching them everything he knew about fighting in turf wars, minus the lessons on how best to pistol whip someone when you run out of ink. And the lessons on Guerrilla warfare. The Cap'n trained their mobility by setting up big obstacle courses for them to go through, and to keep track of them and their progress he used headphones with little cameras and microphones built into them. The cameras and mics were so subtle, they couldn't even see them anywhere on the headphones. Which brought up the question of how the Cap'n could afford something that was so fancy, seeing as he lived on what could generously be called a shoestring budget, but Marie certainly wasn't going to ask questions when the headphones looked as cool as they did.

"There we go!" Callie said as she clicked some hidden button and the headphones lit up with little pulses of light. "Hey gramps, can you hear me? I found the headphones."

Marie heard nothing, but from the headphones Callie heard _"I hear ya loud and clear Callie, can ya hear me?"_

"Gah! Yeah I can hear you but it sounds like you're talking from inside my head."

 _"A burden you'll have to bear I'm afraid. The camera is workin' as well, so I can see what you see."_

"Cool, so, we're in business?"

 _"We're in business. I'll keep an eye out and give you advice where I can. Be sure to pass on any messages to Marie for me."_

"You got it."

"What's he saying?" Marie asked.

"He says we're in business."

"Oh rad."

 _"Rad indeed! Now, here's the game plan. I did some field research last night and determined that our mystery person is at the third area of Octo valley, so that's where ya gotta go. They've done the first kettle, but no telling which one they might have gone into today, so pick one and search."_

"Got it," Callie said with a nod. "Quick question, when you say you did field research are you saying you were poking around Octo Valley even though we asked you politely to stay away from it?"

"He did what now?"

 _"Nothing get's by you girls does it? Welp, we're burnin' daylight, so we can have that conversation later. Head on down to Area 3 and pick a kettle, we should be able to find 'em if we're quick and vigilant!"_

Callie shook her head with a smile. "Sure thing gramps. Keep an eye out for us."

"So, what's the plan?" Marie asked, getting Callie's attention again.

"He says we need to go to Area 3. We gotta pick a kettle, search, and Splat any Octo that tries to stop us. Sound good?"

"Sounds like a slice of fried gold. Let's get to it."

Marie grabbed Callie's roller and tossed it to her, and then grabbed her charger. The cousins stepped away from the shack. They had studied a map of Octo Valley when they had arrived so they knew right were to go. Marie turned to Callie.

"Shall we?"

"You first."

The Squid Sisters morphed down into their squid forms and super jumped away to their destination. About 2 minutes later, Agent 3 arrived back at Area 1, having just gotten back from the "Inkvisible Avenues" Kettle with a new Zapfish, and briefly wondered if he forgot to shut the shack door the other day when he saw it was open.

Way down low in the ocean, whatever fishy, slippery, and probably terrifying god the Inklings worshiped chuckled.

* * *

Agent 3 launched himself into the first area of the Flooder Junkyard and almost immediately felt that something was off. The Flooders were there like he expected, but there was also Ink. Not his, he hadn't fired a shot yet, but not the Octoling's either. This Ink was a cyan color, contrasting with the Octo's purple and the green ink he had chosen. Adding to the confusion, he realized that the vault that had sealed off the launch pad had been opened. Cautiously, and keeping his senses trained for any new disturbance, Agent 3 went for the launchpad.

Agent 3 landed in the second area of Flooder Junkyard and knew for sure something was off. Amidst the cyan Ink that had rather thoroughly covered the ground in a pattern that shouted "Ink Roller" were numerous large splats, which he recognized as the leftovers of a battle. Given the color it looked like Octolings had lost. So there had been more reinforcements, but someone had beaten them first? This was weird, and Agent 3 wanted answers before he went any further. To that end, Agent 3 walked over to one of the splats, kneeled next to it, and shifted his Ink color to Cyan. Once his Ink was the right color he reached into the puddle and searched around.

Splatting an enemy wasn't the same as killing them. Splatting an enemy was the forceful activation of a dormant self defense mechanism that evolution hadn't gotten around to getting rid of yet. Cephalopods used to be able to eject large amounts of ink to blind and confuse foes, and as they evolved the ability was phased out. But not entirely. By overloading a Cephalopod's system with different colored ink it would cause that old defense to activate, resulting in the victim involuntarily ejecting a lot of their own ink, which at the point of splatting would have also been forcefully shifted to the enemy's color.

It wasn't fatal, but it was disorienting and it did hurt. The sudden loss of ink also forced the splatted victim to stay in their squid form until they could reabsorb ink back into their system, which without respawn check points could take a few minutes to a few hours. Which meant that if Agent 3 searched around enough…

"There we go." Agent 3 said as he grabbed hold of his target.

With a quick pull, Agent 3 lifted the Octoling out of the Ink Puddle. The disoriented Octoling, forcefully dyed Cyan and stuck in their Octopus form, sluggishly opened one eye and looked at 3

"How did you get splatted?" Agent 3 asked.

The Octoling's eye widened when he realized who was talking to him. The surprise shifted quickly into a glare.

 **["Can't tell you anything if you can't understand me, jerk. So buzz off."]**

Ah, the Octo language. It'd been a bit since he'd heard it. Whether Inkling or Octoling, the dialects in the languages could vary wildly depending on location, to the point that even if you were technically speaking the same language it could be difficult to understand one another (Such is the consequence of having a language consisting of high-pitched gurgling). Because of that a pidgin had been created to make things easier, a pidgin that had been adopted by both species of Cephalopods before the whole war thing happened.

All the Octolings he'd talked to recently had used the pidgin as they needed him to understand them to threaten him, and the Octolings he'd fought for the first Zapfish back in Area 1 might have had the aforementioned issue with dialects. This was the first guy who'd actually used his own language, and it was in the name of denying him information out of spite. Smart strategy, if not for one small issue.

 **["I can understand you,"]** Agent 3 said, much to the Octoling's shock. **["So go ahead and answer my question."]**

 **["How the- How!?"]**

Agent 8 had taught him, and the other agents as well. It was her way of thanking them for teaching her Inklish. But knowing that the truth would sound unlikely at best, Agent 3 instead said:

 **["You'd be amazed at what you can find on the internet. Now, how'd you get Splatted?"]**

The Octoling grimaced and mumbled a few choice swears under his breath, and renewed his glare.

 **["Weather you can understand me or not, I'm not saying anything to the enemy."]**

 **["Even when the enemy can punt you a good distance?"]** Agent 3 cocked a leg back to emphasize his point. The Octoling considered that for a moment, and let out another stream of quiet swears.

 **["This is just freakin' great. First I get stationed at this dump, then I get sniped by some psycho inkling chick, now I'm being interrogated by you of all people! What have you got against us man!?"]**

Agent 3 raised an eye brow. **["The theft of the Great Zapfish?"]**

 **["Like you need it. Our domes are falling apart you know."]**

 **["That may be, but theft isn't how you solve that problem."]**

 **["How then? Go up and ask politely?"]**

 **["Did you try that? Or was Grand Larceny the first thing you all shot for?"]**

The octoling glowered at him **["We got our pride. More than what the Inklings have. Put me back in the Ink, I'm done talking."]**

 **["Sure, just as soon as you tell me what happened here. You mentioned an Inkling girl?"]**

 **["Just run ahead if you're that desperate to meet them! They're probably still here, wrecking things like you."]**

Agent 3 opened his mouth to retort, but the sound of someone super jumping stopped him. Looking at the next area in the distance Agent 3 could see two cyan streaks trailing through the sky. Followed by a couple of purple ones.

 **["Well, they will be until the flooders and the other soldiers get them anyways."]**

Agent 3 dropped the belligerent Octoling into the ink puddle from whence he came and started for the Ink rail. As he slipped into the ink he coalesced all the facts. There were two inklings, at least one of them a girl, and they were wielding a Charger and a Roller.

" _Why,"_ he thought, _"Does that sound familiar?"_

* * *

Marie ducked behind cover, following Callie's lead. 'twas their strategy you see. Callie charged ahead with her roller, Marie covered her with her charger. It was simple and it worked, but alas some situations were annoying enough that even the best strategies didn't keep them from being a pain. The area was divided into pathways by square structures (For help visualizing, imagine that from above the map looked like a waffle. Or just google flooder junk yard map, google does exist for a reason), and had five Flooders patrolling the area. That, plus the vault stopping them from leaving and the Octolings trying to shoot them at every opportunity meant the place could be charitably called a head ache.

"Gramps, any advice?" Callie asked her headphones

" _One of the Octolings must have a key to the vault. I know it's a pain but the only thing to do is find 'em and splat 'em!"_

"Great thanks."

"Plan?"

"One of the Octolings has a key, so find the Octo with the key and splat them."

"Oh cool, where are they? They didn't post their address."

"Uh…" Callie leaned around the corner, "Okay I saw an Octoling straight ahead, on the other side. So, count of three, we run straight down the path and to the left at the very end, and then we splat them. Sound good?"

"Simplicity itself. Lead on."

Callie nodded and leaned around the counter again. She counted down from 3 on her fingers, then turned the corner and sprinted with her roller pressed against the ground, leaving a large cyan trail for Marie to follow. A few Flooders noticed them but they passed by before they could follow them. Right up until they passed by the second to last intersection, where Callie was surprised to find a flooder literally a second from running right over her as she ran by.

"FLOODER!" Callie yelled, diving forward.

Marie skidded to a stop and jumped back, trying to keep out of the Flooder's line of sight. Fortunately, the Flooder didn't notice her. Unfortunately, it did notice Callie, and started trailing behind her. Too slow to catch her but pretty effectively blocking Marie from catching up to her cousin.

"Man, I hate those things-" Suddenly two Octolings emerged from the ink in the side paths she'd run past the first time.

Recognizing the pincer attack for what it was, Marie dropped low and pivoted to face one of her attackers, firing off quick blasts of ink as soon as her charger was pointed vaguely in their direction. The attacker on her right, towards the exit, splatted in a burst of ink and dropped the key they'd been searching for. Despite the quick take down Marie still took a few less than pleasant hits, and she felt another one pelt her in the back. Marie turned again to face her second attacker, this one towards the entrance. The Octoling was running towards her, firing off more shots. Marie was about to dive backwards to get some more distance when the Octoling was stopped in her tracks by something colliding with the back of their head. Marie had a second to watch the object, a splat bomb she realized, before it exploded, taking out the Octoling in a burst of Cyan.

Surprised, Marie regarded the new puddle for a moment before looking back up and seeing someone new. It was an inkling boy, tentacles done up in the common ponytail and rocking the same shade of Cyan the squid sisters were using. But Marie could care less about that, it was the outfit that made her grin under her mask. Light up headphones, a safety vest over a black jacket, and light up running shoes.

" _Found 'em."_

The Inkling stared at her with an almost stunned look. Which was fair, she wouldn't have expected to find a popstar in the middle of enemy territory either.

"Marie!" Callie called from behind, "Sorry about that, you okay?"

"I'm fine, but forget about me. I think I found our guy." Marie replied, pointing to the new arrival.

"Really? All right! It's about time we- FLOODER!"

Callie grabbed Marie and ran, dragging her away from the machine that was a scant few seconds from running the two of them over.

* * *

Agent 3 stared another few seconds, and then formed a grin of his own. He took off down the center path, grabbing the key as he went, and ran for the exit.

If it were an eel it would have bit him. Callie and freaking Marie, of course it was them! It was obvious in hindsight he'd just never seen them out on the field before. But here they were, cleaning house for him.

As he passed by an intersection Agent 3 saw the cousins again. He pointed forwards as he ran, hopefully signaling to them his intentions. As much as he wanted to talk to them it'd be better to do that when there weren't Flooders patrolling around. Agent 3 reached the vault and slid the key in, making the whole thing collapse down and reveal the Ink rail leading to the zapfish, which he swiftly activated. Just as he did he heard Callie and Marie approach from behind. He turned towards them, looks like it was time for their second first meeting. Callie (Who was wearing Agent 4's outfit for some reason that's weird) was the first to speak,

"Hey! Glad to finally-" she suddenly winced, to 3 and Marie's concern, "Ah, G-gramps- Gramps! You're yelling _into my skull!"_

Callie all but ripped the headphones off. Agent 3 could just about hear who he was going to assume was Cap'n Cuttlefish yelling through the Headphone's speakers. Callie smiled awkwardly at him.

"Let's try that again. Glad to finally meet you! I'm Ca- Agent 1, and that's Agent 2."

"Hey." Marie said with a small wave, "If you think we look like anyone famous, you're mistaken."

"Heh, right."3 said with a grin. It was good talking to them again, "And, that's your grandpa yelling through the headphones?"

"Ah, yeah…" Callie replied, scratching the back of her head, "Sorry about that. He kinda started asking all the stuff he's wanted to ask you the past couple of days in a _really_ loud voice as soon as we were face to face."

"Pleasant. Well, if you two are Agents 1 and 2, go ahead and call me Agent 3. Nice to meet you."

"Any other time I might've pressed you for your real name, but considering where we are…" Marie said, glancing around for any hazards.

"Yeah, how's about we get out of here?" Callie asked, "We gotta lot of things to ask you, if you don't mind."

"Sure. Let's grab the Zapfish and get out of here before more Octolings show up."

"Yeah there were a lot of them. You really ticked them off huh?"

"What can I say, I like to make big impressions."

* * *

A while later, back in Inkopolis Plaza the three agents emerged from the manhole, in order of Callie, Marie, and Agent 3. Because when your code names are Agents 1, 2, and 3, doing things in any order besides numerical is just wrong.

Callie and Agent 3 were back in their casual outfits, Marie of course had never taken hers off. Callie surveyed the Plaza for anyone looking at them. Most weren't, and the few that did see them emerge gave little more than a quizzical look before going back to their own devices.

"Coast is clear," Callie said to her compatriots, "Let's roll."

"Keep it casual," Marie quietly said to Agent 3 as they started walking, "You've been doing a great job not freaking out about being in the presence of celebrities, so just keep it up."

Agent 3 raised an eyebrow at her, amused. Good ol' Marie, too cool to care about her fame… but obviously everybody would be foaming at the mouth to be in her presence, and if they weren't well they just weren't very cultured.

"Thought you guys weren't famous?" 3 joked.

"Not while we're wearing these outfits we're not. But seriously, you do know who we are right?"

Agent 3 nodded. "Callie Pop and Marie Kikuma. It's pretty obvious."

"Yeah I figured, what with my face on display back in the Valley." Callie said. "Seriously though maybe don't mention our names. Last thing we want is people noticing us. We'd get mobbed."

"No worries, believe me I prefer to keep anonymous." 3 replied.

"Speaking of which, don't suppose we can get your name now, can we?" Marie asked.

"My name's Will. Don't suppose you can tell me where we're going?"

After the Zapfish had been placed on the Cap'n's bed, next to the other one 3 had gotten that day, the Squid Sisters were insistent that he come with them to talk to their grandpa. At no point did they bother to mention where Cap'n Cuttlefish was, and given that that was one of the few things 3 couldn't answer with future knowledge, he was legitimately curious.

"Good to meet you properly, Will. We're going to a hotel, south of the plaza. Our gramps been sitting there waiting to find out about you ever since you started taking back the zapfish."

The Cap'n's been at a hotel? "Why's he at a hotel?"

"Well when you ransacked his shack, we all kinda thought the Octarian's had found him. So we moved him to a hotel so he wouldn't get Squidnapped." Callie answered. "Guess we didn't really have to, since it was just you, huh?"

"…Oh…"

Whoops.

"He's been watching the situation with the Octarians and the Zapfish closely." Marie explained. "You showing up out of literally nowhere and taking back all the Zapfish kinda freaked him out. A chance to actually talk to you and get some answers ought to calm him down. Plus I'll admit, I'm kinda curious too."

"Yeah no kidding." Callie agreed. "Give us a sneak peak of who you are? Are you perhaps a rich person with no day job?"

"Uh, no, I'm a poor person with no day job."

"Seriously? You're saying you're not anyone special? Given what you've been doing the past couple of days I find that kind of hard to believe."

 _No, I'm just your average, everyday time traveler defeating the same army of soldiers a second time._

Agent 3 smiled at his own internal joke. "Nope, just a normal guy."

* * *

An hour or two after Callie, Marie, and Agent 3's escapade in the Flooder Junkyard an Octoling was trying to look stoic, and being betrayed by her sweating and her inability to stop tapping her finger on the clipboard holding the mission reports.

DJ Octavio, tentacles crossed, stared at her with his usual glare.

"Well?" He said.

"… Um… It looks like… it looks like there might be…"

"Go on."

"… Uh, it looks like there might be three enemy agents now-"

Octavio slammed his tentacles on his desk.

" **SON OF A-"**

* * *

 **So here's this.**

 **Agent 3: Will, named after Marine Biologist William Elford Leach.**

 **Callie Pop and Marie Kikuma, last names derived from their voice actresses, and Mari Kikuma.**

 **The reference to the Inklings probably terrifying god isn't meant to set up anything. I've just been playing Bloodborne recently and the idea of the Inklings worshiping an Eldritch God is amusing to me.**

 **Agent 8 was able to communicate with Cap'n Cuttlefish Easily in the Metro, but the Amiibo for the Octolings have them flat out admit their still learning Inklish. Thus, the Pidgin explanation. They aren't supposed to be speaking the Pidgin all the time, I just don't want to have to denote the text constantly. Just use the context to figure out if they would be speaking Inklish or Octarian or the Pidgin.**

 **Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear, Octo Soldiers = actual Octolings. Octo Troopers = Those weird tentacle guys. You all probably already figured that out way back in like the second chapter but I get paranoid about miscommunications. Anyways,**

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**


	6. Chapter 6

Agent 3 sat before the New Squidbeak Splatoon. The Cap'n had insisted on getting an explanation as soon as possible, so besides a brief name exchange very little was done in the way of becoming acquainted. Not that 3 needed to get to know the Cap'n again, though of course he'd have to be careful about revealing what he knows. The absolute last thing he needed was to be accused of being an Octo spy, or something.

He was now explaining his made-up backstory to the Cap'n and the sisters. The backstory basically amounted to, "I saw some stuff happening at Inkopolis tower and…"

"…When I got there some Octolings were stealing all of the zapfish, and a really big one with green eyes was taking the Great Zapfish." The Cap'n scowled at that. "I didn't think I could fight so many people, so I sat back and watched them. Eventually they all left and I followed them long enough to see them go into Octo Valley. Next day, I went there myself and started going after the Zapfish."

"I see," Cap'n Cuttlefish said, stroking his chin, "There a reason ya robbed my shack? Or are ya just a klepto?"

"Well… I was looking for someone to talk to about the situation. If someone was living in the valley chances are they'd know about what was going on, right? But when I searched the shack I found the blaster and decided to take care of things myself."

"Question," Marie interjected "I get why you took the gun, but why'd you take the outfit too?"

"Because it looks cool."

"And you don't care that it used to be my outfit?"

"Nah, I wear it better than you anyways."

"Hey."

"He really does, it's weird." Callie agreed.

"Hey!"

"Getting' back on track," the Cap'n interrupted "I appreciate that there are still young 'uns willin' to put in effort to defend their city," He said that like there used to be more people like that. Weren't Inklings losing the war because they couldn't wake up on time? "but why'd ya do it all on your own? Surely ya had to have guessed that was dangerous."

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Call the police." The Cap'n responded.

"Call the FBI." Callie added.

"Call literally anybody." Marie supplied.

"Ah, well… My phone wasn't charged, so…"

They regarded him suspiciously. There's a chance he should have put more effort into his back story than basically none. Not his fault he'd been distracted! "I have to save the city so shut up" is a pretty good get out of jail free card for that sort of thing.

"Look, it's not like I didn't think about that later. I just figured that if I could get the Zapfish back myself I may as well do that and keep people from panicking about the Octolings."

Cap'n Cuttlefish considered him for a moment, and gave a nod "Well, dangerous as it was for ya to do things on your own, I do appreciate the discretion. And it must be said, I'm impressed with how well ya must have been fighting against the army of Octolings ya would've had to fight."

"Oh well, thanks-"

"But!" Cap'n Cuttlefish jabbed a finger in Agent 3's face, forcing him to lean back lest he lose an eye. "There's still one thing I need to know!"

"Uh-"

"What do ya want from all o' this?"

"… What do I… want?"

"Yes, what's the reward you're seekin'? Money? Fame? Girlfriends? Boyfriends?"

"… Uh… None of those. I just want to get the Zapfish back. I guess."

Really, he just wanted to get his old life back, but getting the Zapfish back was a part of that so, not technically a lie.

"Really?" Marie asked with a raised eyebrow. "Not a thing? Seems like a lot of work for no reward."

"Yeah no kidding," Callie said in agreement. "You're not even trying to get your name on a plaque or something?"

"I don't care about money or fame, and I'm not looking for a relationship." 3 asserted. He then looked the Cap'n in the eyes and said a canned line that he knew would score him points with the old coot. "I just want to defend our great Inkopolis, and all of Squidkind, from any who would dare threaten it."

Callie and Marie were unimpressed, but the Cap'n Cuttlefish gave a firm nod and stood off of his bed.

"Well put!" the Cap'n said with a hint of patriotic pride in his voice. "And who says the new generation is lazy?" The Cap'n did, on more than a few occasions. "I trust ya to not be lyin' about yer motives. Somethin' about ya tells me you're the reliable type. That in mind, if yer' on our side, I think I ought to cut you a deal."

"Oh yeah? I'm listening." Agent 3 said, already having a good idea what was going to be offered.

"We both got the same goals; retrieving the Zapfish and defeating the Octarian Menace. I don't want to be on the sidelines for this, and given how much work you've already put in I doubt you'd let anything stop ya now."

"Correct."

"Thought so. But I also don't like the idea of ya being out on yer own, it'd be irresponsible of me. So, how's about ya join the New Squidbeak Splatoon? We need someone young, with no schedule to tie them down. You'd get to keep doing what you've been doing, but now with me and Agents 1 and 2 watchin' over ya."

"When we're not busy, that is." Marie added.

"Right. Now, ya might not like takin' orders givin' you've been a lone wolf all this time, but trust me, if ya a think you've gotten a lot done already, wait 'till you see what you can do on a team."

" _Ah, finally."_ Agent 3 thought. This was long overdue… actually when you compare time-lines he's technically a day early, but you know what he meant.

"Sounds good to me. I'm in."

"Glad to hear it!" The Cap'n held out his hand. "Welcome to the Splatoon!"

Agent 3 stood up and shook the Cap'n's hand.

"Wow, didn't take much to convince you." Marie said as she and Callie stood up.

"It was a good deal." Agent 3 replied with a shrug.

"Indeed it is! Now that we're on a team I suppose we 'aught to share our contact info and what not."

"Sure, trade me phones and I'll add my number to your-" It was at that moment 3 remembered he already had Callie and Marie's number in his contacts. "-Actually, my phone is in my other pants," 3 recovered, hoping the outline of his phone couldn't be seen on his shorts, "I'll write it down somewhere."

"Aren't those the same shorts you had on before?" Callie asked.

" _Dang it Callie stop being observant."_

"No… They're different."

"Why buy two shorts that look exactly the same?"

"Well… don't most people do that anyways?"

"… Yeah actually that's fair. There's one of those free hotel notepads over on the corner if you want to write your number down on that."

"Oh, sure."

Agent 3 walked to the desk and grabbed the note pad and pen. He got about half way through his phone number when Marie piped up all of a sudden,

"Oh, may as well write down your address too while you're at it."

Agent 3 paused. "… My address?"

"Yeah. We're not planning on having any slumber parties or anything but if we're working together it'd probably be helpful to know where you live."

"Ah, good thinkin' Marie!" The Cap'n added, sounding overly impressed in the way only a grandparent complimenting their grandchild can be.

"Uh… right…" Agent 3 thought hard, but instead of finding excuse to get out of the conversation all he found was the mental equivalent of a dial tone. "So, thing is… I don't really… have an address."

"Oh, so you living at a hotel then, or something?"

"Um… no."

The three of them tilted their heads at that. Agent 3 knew it was a mannerism passed from the Cap'n to his granddaughters, but it still felt like they were doing it on purpose.

"You have to be sleeping somewhere, right?" Marie asked, almost sounding concerned.

"Well… yeah."

"…so where at?"

"… Uh… Park bench."

The 3 stared at him in surprise for a moment. 3 stared back, what else was he supposed to do?

"Park bench?" The Cap'n said, " _Park bench?_ Ya mean to tell me Yer homeless?"

"Uh, yeah. I suppose."

"You 'suppose'?" Callie asked, disbelieving, "Dude how long have you been on the streets?"

"It's not bad, I knew I wouldn't have a place to stay when I came to Inkopolis. I don't mind." 3 reassured them.

"Well that's good, _I guess,_ but how long have you been a hobo?"

"Ugh… six days."

"Six days?! _"_

"Dude, one day is bad enough, why did you come to Inkopolis if you didn't have any place to stay?" Marie asked, concerned.

"Because… Look it's fine, okay? I get enough to eat, I'm earning money through turf wars, everything is fine, so don't worry."

"I'll worry all I like. Youn'uns like yourself shouldn't be sleeping on benches, it 'aint right."

Agent 3 ran a hand through his hair. Things were going so well before.

"Look, like I said, I don't mind, and I am saving up money. Soon as I can rent an apartment I will. So can we focus on the 'saving the city' thing? That's more important than where I'm sleeping."

The Cap'n looked like he wanted to argue, but let out an aggravated sigh instead "Yer right, but I still don't like the idea of you livin' on a bench."

"Well, it's not like you can buy me an apartment, so…"

"Actually," Callie said, realizing something, "can't do an apartment, but a hotel room isn't out of the question."

"Oh, good idea Callie!" Cap'n praised.

"Wait, really?" 3 asked, surprised.

"Sure, I'm cool with it. Marie?"

Marie looked uncertain for a moment, but in the end just shrugged. "Eh, it's a bit weird buying a room for someone we just met, but we are a team now so sure, why not?"

Agent 3 rubbed the back of his head, "I mean, I don't want to mooch off you guys…"

"We can cover it, no worries. Just consider it payback for all the hero stuff you've been doing."

"Well, I mean, okay. If you're willing."

"Awesome! We'll stop by the front desk after we're done with this."

3 nodded and went back to writing his number. He didn't like taking without giving, but he'd learned that Callie and Marie wouldn't take payback if they didn't want it, so he didn't bother offering any. He'd just have to do what he did in the past. The future? The former future now past? The past fut- whatever, Agent 3 would have to just pay them back without telling them he was paying them back, that's what he always did.

"Okay, it's good to meet all of you, and I look forwards to taking back the zapfish with your help. So, unless there's something else to talk about I should get back to work," 3 said as he handed the note to the Cap'n, "and since I'm working for you now, I suppose I should ask for my orders. What's the plan, Cap'n?"

The Cap'n considered the question for a moment. Agent 3 waited patiently, even though he knew the plan was going to boil down to, "Fight the Octolings, take back the Zapfish."

"The plan is… Take the rest of the day, and the next two days, off."

Wut.

"That's a turnaround gramps." Marie said, surprised, a sentiment 3 could agree with whole heartedly. "I thought you wanted the Octolings defeated as soon as possible?"

"I do. But knowing the conditions our newest agent has been livin' in, I'm thinkin' a break is overdue."

"I don't need a break." 3 argued "Weren't you just saying I'd get things done faster working for you?"

"Yep, and ya will. But everyone needs time off, otherwise we get sloppy. And you've been a very, very hard worker the past couple of days. Two days to recharge ought to do ya some good."

"I don't need a recharge, I can keep this up for months."

"Can ya?" Cap'n Cuttlefish lightly accused, "Let me tell ya what I see." The Cap'n pointed a finger under Agent 3's eye "I see sunken in eyes from poor sleep. I see bruises from too many fights and not enough rest. And I _smell_ someone who's been ignorin' their showers. Or rather, hasn't been able to take any."

"Oh, okay good I thought I was the only one that noticed," Marie suddenly cut in. "Yeah you got bad B.O. dude."

Agent 3 shot Marie a small glare, before looking back to the Cap'n. "None of that means I can't keep retrieving Zapfish. The sooner we get this done, the better."

"I agree. But its only been four days since the octolings stole all the zapfish and you've already gotten back, what, 12 of the suckers?"

"14 counting the 2 we got today." Callie corrected.

"Well there ya go. You've already gotten just under half of the zapfish back already and it's only been four days! I'd say you're ahead of schedule. And when you're ahead of schedule, breaks aren't so bad."

The Cap'n was more correct about being ahead of schedule than he could ever realize. However, that didn't change the fact that 3 didn't want to take a break. Even if there was a traitorous part of himself that argued that sleeping on a bed again would be nice, he was still like 95% in favor of fighting Octolings.

"Yeah, but…"

Now if only he could think of a convincing argument. Far as he was concerned "I don't want to" was the only argument one needed. A few years of the sisters and the Cap'n complaining about his life choices told him they would need a bit more than that.

"Gotta say I'm agreeing with gramps. I mean, working all those days in a row has to be tiring." Callie said.

"What, four days? You guys work all week, don't you?"

"We do a news show, write songs, and sing." Marie shot back, "that's not as strenuous as fighting a secret war."

Agent 3 couldn't really argue with that, but he'd try anyways. He was pretty sure if he kept stalling, he could come up with something…

Before he could try though, the Cap'n spoke up again. "If yer just a glutton fer punishment, there's a tactical reason too," There was? How was not fighting gonna help the fight? "From what I saw from Callie and Marie's mission, the Octolings are fighting hard. They're just sending Octolings after ya, not much strategy beyond a few ambushes. Far as I can figure that's 'cause ya freaked them out and haven't given them a chance to calm down."

"Okay… what would letting them calm down do?"

"It'll make them feel less desperate. Picture it like this; If someone came at ya throwing punches and steppin' in your personal bubble, you wouldn't think of any strategy, ya'd just swing back as hard and fast as ya could. In this case, you're the one throwing punches, and that might've worked if not for the fact that the Octolings outnumber ya 10 to 1."

"Eh, more like 100 to 1 I'd assume. It **is** an entire society." Marie corrected.

"Fair point. As things are, I'd say the Octos are likely ta escalate their pushback until they hit you with something you can't fight. But if we back off, let 'em calm down so they start fighting cautiously instead of aggressively, we can go at things slower and safer. Trust me when I say, it's a lot easier to win when ya have time to think."

Agent 3 tried to find fault with what the Cap'n was saying. Did his logic make sense? He really didn't know, and that was the problem.

Agent 3 wasn't, and would never be, a strategist. He worked best when he was pointed in the right direction and let loose, and he'd relied on the Cap'n and the rest of his friends to aim him to the right targets. The Cap'n meanwhile was the successful leader of a So as much as Agent 3 wanted to keep fighting, he didn't know enough to argue against the Cap'n.

And he didn't think he'd gain much trying either. He'd already made his friends concerned thanks to the whole "being homeless" thing. (And he still thought they were over reacting). It'd be inconvenient if he made them even more worried by coming across as an unrepentant workaholic too… and yeah, it'd also make him feel bad.

The splatoon looked at him, waiting for his answer. 3 let out a resigned sigh as he gave up.

"Alright, fine. Two days off. But not a day longer."

The Cap'n smiled and nodded. "Sure thing. It'll do ya a lot of good, you'll see. Now," The Cap'n clapped his hands together, "There's a lot of details n'such to hash out about all of this, but for now, how's about we get your room set up for ya?" The Cap'n turned to the squid sisters, "Girls?"

"Sure," Callie said as the two of them stood up, "We can get you anything accept the penthouse suits. We're not made of money ya know." She joked.

Agent 3 made to follow them out of the room, but was stopped when Cap'n Cuttlefish reached out for a hand shake.

"Before ya head off, let me just say, welcome to the Squidbeak Splatoon!"

* * *

 **Well here's this. I had difficulty writing this chapter for some reason. Was tempted to make it longer but I think I found a good enough place to end it so i'll just move on to the next scenes.**

 **Oh I made a type in the notes last chapter**

 **"Callie Pop and Marie Kikuma, last names derived from their voice actresses, and Mari Kikuma"**

 **was supposed to be "Callie Pop and Marie Kikuma, last names derived from their voice actresses,** **and Mari Kikuma." Wouldn't have bothered to point it out normally but if i'm name dropping someone I should really do it properly.**

 **Yeah I don't have much of substance to write down here.**


	7. Bonus: Republic of 3

**This chapter isn't connected to the main chapters in anyway, hence the "Bonus" designation. This will be the same for all other Bonus Chapters.**

* * *

3 was confused when he woke up.

Generally, you were supposed to wake up in the same bed you fell asleep in.

Also, Generally, you weren't supposed to time travel back into your room, 2 years in the past.

And while there wasn't a rule book on the subject, you most certainly weren't supposed to do that TWICE.

"Seriously? Back here _again?!_ I thought I had everything done!"

And he did. He saved the world, got the girl, got all his friends back, the works! But now what, he's in a time loop? Does he seriously have to do all of this _again?_

3 grumbled to himself and sat up when he heard his mom call him down for breakfast. He turned and swung his legs over the edge of his bed… and then saw himself laying on the ground, staring at him with more confusion than science realized was possible.

"…What the fresh fu-"

* * *

 **# of 3s: 2**

* * *

After much internal panicking, and jumping out the window when they heard their mom coming up the stairs to check on them, the two 3s found themselves in an alley, going over the facts without freaking out as best they could. Eventually they managed to get things figured out, more or less.

"So, you have all my memories? From the first and second timeline?"

"Yes, but how do you know they're _your_ memories? What if they're mine?"

"I don't know, I was in the bed so I assume I'm the original."

"How does that prove anything?"

"Dude I don't know. Does it even matter? If we have the exact same memories and experiences then aren't we the same person? Does 'original' even apply to us?"

"I… oh man you're right. That's… that's some quantum mechanics nonsense I don't know if I can deal with that."

"Well forget about it then. Look we both agree that we time looped and that created two of us, right?"

"Right."

"Okay, so what we need to figure out is what we're gonna do now."

"Right… That's a good question isn't it?"

"Yeah… what the heck _can_ we do?"

"Well, not much, I think. We can't like… _fuse together,_ can we?"

"I… I don't know. How would we even do that?"

"I don't know either. Touch? Isn't that how it's usually done in like movies and stuff?"

"I guess…" 3#1 looked at his hand, "Do you think this is one of those situations where if we touch the universe collapses?"

3#2 looked at his hand as well. "… Should we find out?"

The two 3s looked each other in the eyes, then slowly reached their hands out. Delicately, carefully, their hands came closer to each other, until they gently pressed their palms together. And then…

Nothing.

They both let out a sigh of relief and lowered their hands

"Okay good we don't need to worry about that."

"Yeah, that would have been a downer."

"Okay then, so what now? Far as I can tell everything is the same except there's two of us now."

"Eh… well… I don't think there's anything new we can do, is there?"

"I guess not… but we can't really walk around like it's no big deal. If mom or dad see the two of us, they'll flip."

"Right, so I guess we have to make sure anyone who knows us doesn't see us."

"That'll be tough while we live in the same house."

"True… hey wait, if everything's the same but there's just two of us, then that means Octavio is still going to steal the Zapfish?"

"Well, yeah, I suppose it does."

"Right, so, one of us, or both of us, are going to have to deal with that?"

"Ah, I see. Yeah, that stands to reason, but we can't just leave without making our parents think we moved out.

"Right, otherwise they'd panic. But since there's two of us now…"

"One of us can stay here, and the other can go to inkopolis early."

"Exactly. Glad we're on the same wavelength."

"It'd be weird if we weren't."

"Question is, who's going to go to Inkopolis?"

"… Rock paper scissors?"

And so, they played Rock Paper Scissors for it.

* * *

Another day, another series of hours spent gathering information and strategizing against the Octarian menace in his shack. No, Cap'n Cuttlefish was not obsessed, he just had his priorities straight. If he didn't battle against the Octarians, who would? Well, Agent 3, he supposed. Really was a massive stroke of luck that that kid saw the Zapfish theft. He was young, talented, and had no distractions keeping him from focusing on the war. If that wasn't a sign that fate was on Inkopolis's side, he didn't know what was.

A series of knocks rang from his door. "Cap'n! I'm back!" 3 called from outside.

Ah, speak of the devil, "Agent 3! Give me a second I'll be right there."

"Hey before you open the door you should know I brought someone with me."

"What?"

Darn it, he should've known a teenager would brag to his friends. They probably spread the story all over the internet by now.

"Agent 3, this is supposed to be a covert operation!" the Cap'n complained as he threw open the door, "Ya can't just go around telling ev-"

The Cap'n's words died as he saw just who 3 brought with him, which seemed to be _himself._

"… A-am I going delirious or are there two of ya?"

The first 3 gestured towards the other 3.

"Cap'n, this is my identical twin brother… uh, Bill."

"Bill" looked at his "Twin" with an annoyed look. "Really?"

"You come up with something better." 3#1 whispered to 3#2, before looking back to the Cap'n. "He'd like to help out."

The Cap'n blinked at the two of them. Suddenly seeing two of a person when you thought only one existed was quite disorienting. The Cap'n shook his head, hoping to shake away the confusion.

"You uh, didn't mention ya had a twin."

"Didn't come up."

"No, I suppose it didn't. And you say he wants to help?"

"Mm-hmm. Can't leave my bro here to fight all by himself." Bill said.

"Well that's noble n' all, but ya know this isn't gonna be an easy battle, doncha?"

"Sure, but the two of us are equally skilled, so with two of us this ought to be a cake walk."

"Hrm. Well I'd warn ya against gettin' cocky… but I suppose the more troops we have the easier this'll be." The Cap'n looked to Will, "You vouchin' for your brother's skills? You'd know better'n me."

Will nodded, "The two of us can handle this no problem."

Cap'n Cuttlefish considered the two for a moment, then nodded. "Alright then. I assume yer armed? I only had the one gun."

"I have a Splatter Shot, it'll be enough."

"Alright, in that case, Bill it's good to meet ya," Bill nodded, "Will why don't ya take yer brother over to the next kettle, I'll be over there in a moment to explain the plan."

"Sure thing."

The brothers walked over to the aforementioned Kettle. The Cap'n watched them leave for a moment, then shook his head and went back inside to retrieve the notes he'd written from the shack.

"My goodness, those two take 'Identical' to a whole new level…"

* * *

From there, things were more or less the same, except there were two 3s instead of one, and yes they did insist that they were both Agent 3.

As you would expect the extra 3 made things easier, and the two "brothers" tore through the Kettles in record time. During their campaign against the Octarians they would eventually meet the Squid Sisters again, who were amused by just how similar the "twins" were, in appearance and mannerisms. Care was taken to make sure their parents never ever saw or heard the two of them at the same time, though they refined their "Identical twins separated at birth" story incase they found out they suddenly had two sons. They weren't really sure how to convince their mom she actually gave birth to two kids and didn't know it, but they had to come up with some kind of answer that seemed more logical than time travel, so they'd try.

The 3s became some of the closest friends possible. They were the exact same person after all, only way to make them closer would be to staple them together. Outside of turf wars and missions, their days were largely spent hanging out and talking about whatever. They took the oddities caused by their cloning as it happened, though occasionally they'd hit an issue they'd couldn't ignore.

* * *

"So… what do we do about Agent 8?"

Will looked up from the tv and looked over at Bill. He digested the question, and found that it didn't go down well. That was a very good question, unfortunately…

"… I… I don't… know?"

"Well, we have to do something… she _is_ our girlfriend."

"I know… but… I have no idea what to do. There's two of us, technically we both dated her… do we… do we share her?"

"…I don't know what you mean exactly when you say that, and I'm going to go ahead and assume the answer is no."

* * *

Time moved on, as it tended to do, and questions they couldn't answer were put on the back burner to be postulated on later.

In no time, the Zapfish were retrieved, and even the fearsome Octavio was taken down with ease thanks to the teamwork and skill of the two 3s.

With Octavio down and the city safe, the two defaulted to chilling for the next two years (When they said they went back two years, it would be more accurate to say "two years and 7 months". Two years was just easier to say). Things were kept the same as to make the best use of their future knowledge. They did however, make the effort to keep the relationship between Callie and Marie strong. They'd never stopped being some of the closest siblings around (Second only to the 3s) but the low point in their relationship, where their individual responsibilities caused them to drift apart, was a sad thing to watch. If they could at least alleviate that by encouraging them to call each other or go out for lunch every now and again, why wouldn't they?

It was however, near the end of the second year, when the Cap'n invited the 3s out for a research trip, that they planned to make a big change in the time line. Only Will went with the Cap'n on the research trip, Bill stayed behind, and kept a close eye on a certain celebrity.

On the night that Octavio broke free, Bill made his move.

* * *

Callie cut through an alleyway on her way home. It was a long and tiring day thanks to the extra work load she took on to earn some time off, but was worth it if it meant she could see Marie and her parents and just relax for a few days.

Callie paused when four figures appeared at the end of the alley. They were all wearing hooded coats, their faces obscured by shadows, and they were all walking directly towards her. Pro tip, if you ever see people like that it's a good sign you should skedaddle. Callie turned around, but only made it a step when she realized another group of four were closing in on her from behind.

"Oh no…"

Callie pressed her back against the cold brick wall. As the figures closed in on her she tried desperately to think of a way out, but couldn't think of anything, not with how close they all were already.

Thankfully she didn't have to.

Just as the group was upon her, a splatbomb hit the ground behind them. Some managed to dive away but others weren't so lucky, and as soon as the bomb detonated the group was cut in half. Callie dropped down, pressed herself against the wall, and covered herself with her arms as the bomb went off. She heard a Splattershot go off and another two people being splatted, along with two sets of footsteps, very quickly getting quieter and more distant.

"You better run! Cowards!"

Callie lowered her arms and looked up to see Agent 3, it'd have to be Bill since Will was out with Cap'n Cuttlefish. Looking around she saw a lot of ink covering the ground and walls.

"Attacking some one unarmed in an alley, how low can you go?" Bill said with contempt. He looked over to Callie and started walking towards her. "Hey, are you okay? You hurt?"

Bill held his hand out to her. She looked at it for a moment, until finally the message "oh, you're safe" hit her brain. Callie let out a massive sigh of relief and sort of sagged against the wall.

"Oh my god, holy mother of… I thought… I thought I was done for… oh man…"

3 crouched down so he could be eye level with her. "Don't worry about that, your safe now. Sorry I didn't come sooner, I had to wait for them to group up so I could take out as many of them at once as possible. Are you hurt?"

Taking deep breaths, Callie replied, "Y-yeah, yeah no I'm fine… That was… that was terrifying…"

"You're safe now." 3 stood up and held out his hand again. After a moment Callie grabbed hold and let herself be pulled up.

"Thank you. How'd you know I was gonna be attacked?"

"I heard commotion at the valley, so I went to investigate. Octolings, a whole bunch of Octolings, were there. They broke Octavio out, I'm sorry to say. Before they left Octavio asked for the status of the Splatoon. They mentioned you were alone and they had sent some people to… uh, collect you," Callie shuddered at that, "So, I rushed over. Got here just in time."

In truth, he'd been following Callie ever since she left her workplace. He'd have intercepted the Octolings sooner but they were split up and only gathered into one spot as they made their move on Callie. He didn't want to risk the others attacking Callie while he was dealing with one of them, so he waited.

"Oh man… Thank you, _thank you…_ We have to warn Gramps, and your brother. If Octavio's out again-"

"I'll call them as soon as I can. For now though, we should get you home."

"Right, yeah let's do that. Should I cancel my vacation?"

"No, I would go that far. Actually, getting you out of Inkopolis for a few days might be a good idea."

"Ah, okay I see your point. Plus, seeing my family would really help calm me down, 'cause I'll be honest I'm still freaking out on the inside a bit."

"That's understandable. Let's get you home." 3 held out his hand. "Shall I be your bodyguard?"

Callie grabbed his hand " _Absolutely._ Get me outta here."

* * *

Octavio made no attempt to kidnap anyone else again. Callie spent a relaxing two days with her family, only revealing the kidnapping attempt to Marie after they returned to Inkopolis. Bill went with her, as she was still nervous about traveling alone. Considering what'd almost happened, he didn't blame her. He returned to Inkopolis after a day and got to work.

Will and Cap'n Cuttlefish were called and warned, though he told them to stay on their research trip. Will convinced the Cap'n to do that, knowing they had to find Agent 8 and the Deep Sea Metro. Bill recruited Agent 4 once again, and helped her defeat the Octolings and reclaim the zapfish. Marie helped as well. In fact she demanded that she help, the attempted kidnapping of her cousin having thoroughly infuriated her.

Octavio was once again defeated, and in time Will, Cap'n Cuttlefish, and Agent 8 returned from the Metro.

Will, having been the one who went to the metro, was the one who 8 fell for eventually. Bill was somewhat saddened by the loss of first girlfriend, even though technically she was still dating him (Time travel mechanics are bull). However, this wound up not being too big a deal. Thanks to the alterations made in the time line, Bill wound up with someone else…

* * *

"Geeze, you just announced you two were official yesterday, and you're already moving in with her?"

"Her idea, but the apartment is too cramped with the us and Agent 8 anyways."

"I guess. Still surprised Callie would ever want to date an Agent 3."

At some point Agent 3 became a descriptor, rather than referring to one of them specifically.

"I guess she took a liking to me after I saved her from getting kidnapped."

"Yeah, if anything were to win points with a girl, it'd probably be that."

And so, time moved on and things were as close to normal as they could be.

Will enjoyed being with Agent 8 again, and Bill enjoyed being with Callie. Agent 4 was their friend again, albeit slightly more irritating thanks to her constantly pretending to confuse their names. Life was simple and easy. But as the months rolled by a sense of unease started to grow. They were getting closer to the point in time that they looped, and they had no way of knowing if they would or wouldn't loop again.

On the final night the two 3s got together and hung out.

* * *

It was 9:23 PM. The "brothers" had gone out for a late dinner at a fast food place, and were now getting ready to their respective homes.

"Well, guess this is it." Said Will.

"Guess so." Bill agreed. "I know we said not to talk about it, but, any idea what we should do if we go back again?"

Will thought for a moment. "Whatever we do, we'll do our best."

"That is such a wishy washy no commitment answer."

"Well if you got anything better to say I'm all ears."

They looked at each other, then just started laughing. Will held up his drink, Orange Cream Soda, the king of Sodas.

"Let's hope time keeps moving forwards."

Bill held up his drink, also Orange Cream.

"Here's hoping."

The tapped their cups together, took a drink, then walked home in opposite directions.

* * *

Agent 3 was irritated when he opened his eyes. He was back in his old bedroom. _AGAIN._

"Oh great, back here again." He said as he sat up.

"That's not all." His clone said, sitting up… and pointing his thumb at a _3_ _rd_ Agent 3.

The new Agent 3 waved. "Looks like we're a trio now."

The first Agent 3 flopped back onto his bed. "Freaking _Fantastic._ "

They were, once more, the exact same person. Even the things that Will and bill had done separately were now divided up amongst the trio. With nothing else to be done about it, two of the 3 Agent 3's went to Inkopolis.

Here they go again…

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 3**

* * *

"A-am I going delirious or are there 3 of ya?"

The first 3 gestured towards the other two 3s.

"Cap'n, these are my identical twin brothers, Bill and Ted. Before you ask, yes, our dad liked the movie."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 4**

* * *

"So, I'm not the only one who get's weirded out looking at all of them in one place, right?" Callie asked, watching the quadruplets as they ate lunch.

"No, no it's weird." Marie agreed. "I feel like I'm looking at a glitch in reality.

"I know quadruplets happen, but, they're _so similar._ There like literally the same person just copy pasted."

"Hmm… 10 bucks says they're actually clones made by the government."

"10 bucks says they're alien reploids."

"You're on."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 5**

* * *

"You know what we should do?" One of the Agent 3s said one day while they were all lounging around. "We should form a band."

The other 3s thought about it, then nodded in agreement.

"Absolutely."

"We have an opportunity literally no one else could have. We'd be fools to not take advantage of it."

"Question though, do any of us know how to play an instrument?"

…

"We'll learn."

* * *

After a few months of training, the rock band "5 3s" hit the scenes. At first their music wasn't too noteworthy, considered amateurish by most, though their gimmick of being identical twins made them somewhat interesting. In time however, their music improved and slowly but surely, they rose in popularity. They even became popular enough to do collabs with the Squid Sisters, whom they were rumored to have been friends with even before they'd become a band.

Although there was a period where the band was forced to go on Haitus due to family issues. Specifically, their parents swearing blind that they didn't have 4 extra sons.

When asked by the media, the band wisely chose not to comment on the issue.

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 8**

* * *

"Hey mom?"

Jane, or J as her friends called her, who the readers might know better as 3's mom, turned away from her task of cooking eggs to see her son behind her, looking strangely serious.

"Good morning! Is something wrong? You have sort of a look about you."

"I kind of need to tell you something."

Frowning, Jane removed the eggs from the heat and turned to face Will.

"Did something happen?"

"Sort of. Um, you might want to sit down, it's kind of a big thing."

Jane crossed her arms. "Will? What happened?"

Will took a breath, and waved in some people from the sides. That was weird, who else could've been in the house besides her husband?

And then her son came in and stood next to her first son. Then another 6 of her sons walked in and suddenly Jane wasn't sure about her grip on reality anymore.

"Told you it was a big thing."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 15**

* * *

 **Today's Headline: Inkling Youth Cloned!**

 **Scientists shocked as 14-year-old Inkling suddenly has 14 brothers**

 **This week a family in the North Country didn't have a chance to have a normal day, as the mother woke up to discover that her only son, a young man named Will, had apparently been cloned.**

" **It was shocking, I didn't know what to think," the boy's mother told us in an interview, "They were just laying in the hallway, about five, I think. I though I was still dreaming, but they all woke up and another 10 came out of his room."**

 **The mother almost called 911, but one of her sons stopped her, and instead had her call the private number of one Dr. Curone, a high-ranking member of the scientific community and a specialist in Theoretical physics. A group from an as of yet unnamed organization, described as belonging to an "Integrated Research Facility", came by and took the 15 young men away. Details as to what company took them, what exactly they're doing, and how the family's son was cloned have not been released to the public, we have however been assured by the father that his sons weren't worried. In regards to the event the father had this to say:**

" **Obviously I was concerned. I've only ever had the one son, so suddenly having 15, and furthermore having all of them call up someone we've never even heard of and being carted away by them was incredibly bizarre. However, my son… well, sons, explained a lot of things to us. I can't really talk about it since a lot of it is confidential, and I don't think I'd believed anyways, but this apparently isn't the first time they've done this. Our sons were confident that they'd be safe and they seemed to trust the scientist they called, so I'll do my best to trust their judgement."**

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 28**

* * *

Dr. Curone had a long career in the sciences, and had seen, theorized, and tested some strange things. As she read over the notes currently being written up by 28 versions of the same kid, all of whom had apparently time traveled, she was confident that the current situation was the strangest of all.

"These notes are incredible…" Said Dr. Curone. The notes were still being written, but what she was looking at was already the most complex and comprehensive look into the functions of the space time continuum and the fabric of reality ever seen. Until now the best look they had into the manipulation of time was when someone accidentally microwaved a Pizza Pocket backwards, and now they were having years of research dumped into their lap. And technically, thanks to time travel, she was the one who originally wrote it in the first place! It was enough to give a scientist conniptions.

"Don't let it go to your head." One of the Agent 3s said (They'd given up coming up with individual names once there were 13 of them.)

"Yeah, we'd rather not have to fight you again."

Dr. Curone looked up from the notes. "Fight me?"

"Yeah, last time you got high on your own fumes and tried to take over the world with the power of science."

"We had to gather our forces and take you down. You were riding around in a mech, wearing black leather, it was a bad time all around."

"I- did I really do that?" She asked, worried. She'd like to think she wouldn't have, she wanted to use science to help the world for goodness sake! But, like so many other nerds she had been bullied in school, and on bad days she did have those fantasies of violence…

"Nah, you didn't, just messing with ya."

Dr. Curone glared as the 3s laughed.

"Got the last page done!" a 3 in the back yelled. He passed it forward and it soon joined the pile. The 3rd pile, that is. The notes were long enough that it had to be separated into 3 parts to have any hope of being stapled together.

"Excellent." Curone stapled the final part together and lifted all the notes in her arms. "I'll get these typed, printed, and passed around to my colleagues. I'm sure that with this information, we'll have made progress into the field of… well actually I don't think there's a name for it, but whatever we decide to call it we'll have made more progress into it than ever thought possible!"

"That's fantastic!" the 3 closest to her said, him having become the groups spoke person by virtue of, well, being closest to her. "How much progress exactly do you think?"

"Um, well, a lot?"

"Well it's just that you said that last time, then a week later said that you and your colleagues 'barely scratched the surface'. Now I'm sure you guys are doing their best, but that wasn't the best thing for us to hear since we're all kinda tired of going back in time. Ya know?"

"Ah, yes well… This is an entirely new field we're looking at so I can't really say for sure. I can say safely that-"

"'Your notes have set us far ahead, and with each loop we'll get closer and closer'. Yeah, you said that last time too."

"Ah… yes… well…"

The 3 sighed, "No, it's fine, I get it, this stuff takes time. Just getting tired of having to write these notes down."

"… I can assure you we'll do everything we can to find a solution to your problem."

"That's all we ask for. Well, if you have your notes can at least 17 of us be released?"

"Huh? I mean, There'd be no adverse effects to releasing you besides some confusion so I don't see why we couldn't, but, why that specific number?

"We were hoping to try setting up a small family style restaurant managed entirely by 3s. We were thinking there'd be, 5 waiters, 3 cooks, 2 for food prep, 2 dishwashers, 2 janitors, floor manager, assistant manager, and manager."

"So, 17, I see… Why do you want to start a restaurant?"

"Something to do."

"Right… do you know… _how_ to start a restaurant?"

"Yeah, we've been studying. Plus we tried to start one before."

"Really?"

"Yeah, that was loop 14."

"It was a disaster though." Another 3 said.

"Oh yeah, we had no idea what we were doing. That's why we studied. We think we can make it work now."

"Right… Well, I can speak to the overseer, I guess. He'll… probably allow it?"

"There shouldn't be any problem, you'll still have 11 of us to talk to."

* * *

A week and a half later, "3 Course Meals" was a decently successful local business, and the 28 3s had been gathered into a meeting room by Dr. Curone.

"Well, gentlemen… Wills, if you'll allow me to call you that, we've studied your notes, and we believe we've come to understand them as best we can at the current moment. And with that understanding I can say that…"

Dr. Curone's shoulders slumped a little.

"We've barely scratched the surface of what we can do in this field."

The 3s annoyed groans filled the room.

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 37**

* * *

"We've scratched the surface of what we can do in this field."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 50**

* * *

"We've made decent progress in this field."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 63**

* * *

"We've made a surprising progress in this field."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 74**

* * *

"We'd have made more progress in this field if you hadn't taken a year long vacation."

"Hey, we've been waiting on you guys for a long time, we'll take a break if we want to."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 84**

* * *

"We've made great progress in this field."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 96**

* * *

"Gentlemen!" Dr. Curone said, slamming her hand down on the table. "We've made a break through!"

"Finally!" they all called out.

The 3s had taken to studying and learning whatever skills caught their interest, which combined with their memory sharing every time they looped made them collectively some of the smartest kids around. They'd seen and done so many things, it could be hard to hold their attention.

Today though, their attention was focused on the scientists and their diagrams, which were filled with figures and information that was too complex to describe in under a week.

Dr. Curone, who had become the head of the project, was explaining their findings to the 3s.

"We can't explain what sent you back in time originally, but we have managed to figure out that whatever did send you back ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time when it did. Now reality still technically functions, but the tear keeps it from functioning properly, hence the time loops. Now we've thought about how to fix this tear, and the best solution we have amounts to this: we need to break _another hole_ in reality, one which connects to the old tear, and then close them both. Does that make sense…?"

"Imagine reality is like a creature with bones, like a seagull, and you going back in time is like a rock hitting it and breaking a wing." Another scientist explained. "The seagull is technically still alive and functioning, and the skin is still intact, but until it's wing is fixed it wont be able to leave the island it's on. So, we need to open the skin so we can re-set the bone, then close the wound again."

"Yes! That's actually a perfect analogy thank you!"

"Yeah, no kidding, nice." The 3's spokesperson said. "So, do you know how you're going to do that? Are we close?"

"Ah, well," Dr. Curone rubbed the back of her head. "This is just the hypothetical solution which our current evidence points us towards being hypothetically the best-case scenario."

"…So, we're not close at all, are we?"

"Nnnno, not really."

3s head slammed his head against the table.

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 127**

* * *

"With the information you've provided, we believe we can begin designing a machine capable of opening a hole in reality. However, I will warn you, the complexity of the machines coupled with the amount of time and resources it will take to create even prototypes will be immense."

"Yeah, yeah, we're all resigned to the fact that this is gonna take ages. Like, literal ages. Just do what you have to do."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 242**

* * *

"This design, if our calculations are correct, should work."

"Finally! That took way longer than we thought it would. And were prepared to wait a long time!"

"Well, we are trying to punch a hole in reality. I think we can be forgiven for playing it safe… and anyways, we're not clear to start building yet…"

"Of course not- alright, what's the problem, how do we fix it?"

"Space and resources, mostly. The machine will have to be huge, complex and… frankly not only will we have to struggle to get enough equipment, not only will it be a struggle to find anywhere large enough to actually build the thing, I think getting it built in time is… optimistic at best"

"Oh no, no, no! I will not accept that! We're getting really bored, we've done everything, been everywhere, after all this time me and all of the other 3s aren't gonna accept 'can't do it'."

"I understand your frustration, but we just don't know how we can make it happen with our limitations."

"Well what do we need to get around those limitations? There are over 200 of us, that many brains should be able to come up with something."

"Well, as I said, we need space, resources. To build it in time, we'd need skilled engineers, and a lot of them. Also… if you're going to be looking for solutions anyways, if we could find ways to make the machine more efficient that would be a great help. We've worked it out as well as we can, but this is a machine more complex than anything we've ever tried to build, so it's entirely possible we're missing opportunities to simplify it."

"Alright, give us time to think, we'll figure this out."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 253**

* * *

Working with the 3s was fascinating and overwhelming in equal measure.

They appeared suddenly thanks to an anomaly in space time, then after nearly a full two days of writing them down, provided centuries of notes and plans for a field of science no one really knew existed. The scientific community was going to a lot of effort for them, though for very good reason. being stuck in a time loop meant each and every one of them was trapped living out the same events over and over again without even knowing it, which was just bad for everyone. And as the 3's pointed out, if they cloned every single loop, then with enough time there'd be too many of them for the world to sustain. Helping them helped everyone.

Aside from their status as temporal anomalies, they were also some of the smartest people in existence, all 253 of them. Every concern, every question, every minor criticism, they had an answer for it. To be fair though, they didn't have exceptional problem-solving skills, they just had centuries to find the answers. Which, Dr. Curone suspected, was the only reason they'd managed to convince everyone to start working on the machine, miles below earth in the Deep Sea Metro, with Octolings.

("You need space? The Deep-Sea Metro is miles and miles of underground facilities just sitting there. You need resources? Repurpose all the technology sitting and gathering dust. You need engineers? There are hundreds of 3s who will happily work for free if it means getting out of this loop, and believe me when I say we've studied engineering many times these past hundred years."

"And to design and improve our machines, you got the Octolings, who routinely build some of the most advanced tech currently available."

"Yep. And to think it only took us 11 tries to get this all underway."

"It took you 11 tries to come up with this plan?"

"Took us 1 try to make the plan, took us another 10 to figure out how to get Octavio to work with Inklings.")

It was impressive how well things were coming along, all things considered. The Octolings really knew their stuff and had already improved their machines 10-fold since joining. That Marina girl in particular, who the 3's spokesperson had personally recommended to lead the project, was very talented at what she did.

If they were lucky, the machine would be able to fix reality, and possibly even reset the number of Agent 3's back to one. If it didn't, well… they'd hope for the best.

"Hopefully, this will all be finished soon."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 276**

* * *

"It wasn't finished soon."

"Huh?" Dr. Curone asked.

"Just replying to something I heard you say once."

The Machine, which had a proper complicated scientific name but the 3s always referred to as the "Hole Puncher", was about to be activated for the first time. They had built the machine into the human statue that Commander TarTar once tried to use to kill everybody. 3 hadn't let that happen, of course, though as his focus shifted to ending the time loop he had let the government deal with it (A murderous phone was hard to believe, but with 276 clones clogging their streets they learned to keep an open mind to what he said). The human statue had been edited and redesigned to heck and back to accommodate the new machinery.

A new platform had been attached to the chest, which contained all of the safety shielding and control panels for the operators. Various large bits of heavy machinery were attached to and sticking out of the body at various points. The large nozzle in the mouth that would've fired out the beam of sludge that would have killed everyone had been gutted and replace with what looked like a giant megaphone. The eyes now had large machines that glowed green. Apparently, they helped focus the reality bending energies, but it had an unavoidable side effect of making the thing look like it was staring into your soul with bright green eyes, which the mainland had complained about multiple times. And finally, everything above the eyes had been removed and replaced with a large plexiglass sphere, containing an electrode from which occasional beams of colored light extended from the electrode to the outer glass exterior.

Some might say it looked like a giant plasma lamp, but that would just be silly.

Marina's voice reverbed through a speaker system. "Okay everyone, stand behind the shields and get ready, we're about to turn it on."

Everyone took their positions, and with some trepidation Marina hit the on switch.

The statue, and the ocean around it, hummed and buzzed as countless machines within came to life. Any device that had lights on it glowed even brighter, and within the statues head the globe became more active, beams of light multiplying and speeding up in their movements.

"Readings are green, devices are starting in the right order…" Marina said, reading over a dozen meters and readings at once.

As 3 watched the device power up he felt something in him he realized he hadn't felt in a while. Genuine excitement. The last couple of hundreds of years had been… lame, frankly. Just writing down notes and trying to help a bunch of scientists hurry up. And as each loop created more 3s, living conditions became more difficult. It wasn't horrible but finding room for so many people who showed up with no warning what so ever was difficult. For a while a lot of the 3s had to live on boats, recently they'd taken to converting parts of the Metro into homes. That worked actually, but it was short notice and wasn't quite the best. As soon as this machine was finished, they could focus on making life easy again.

According to the scientist's calculations fixing the loop would cause one final loop to occur, but after that they'd be free. That'd be fine if it meant they could stop dealing with all this stupid science and experience some new things again. Soon, everything would be done with, and 3 felt more and more encouraged as the statue powered up-

"Uh oh…"

"Marina?"

"Uh, we're having a few spikes in the data readings, shouldn't be an issue…"

"Your tone doesn't sound encouraging…"

The Hole Puncher started sparking.

"It's fine," Marina said as she furiously typed on a key board and adjusted switches and knobs. "Just need to decrease energy to some areas-" a series of loud pops and bangs emanated from the inside of the machine, "A lot of areas… Uh…"

"Maybe we should turn it off." Dr. Curone said, worriedly.

"Maybe we should turn it off."

Marina was now furiously typing and hitting just about every button on the terminal. The Hole puncher was now smoking and the glass dome on the head had cracked. The scientists and engineers on the platform hand begun running around, trying to find a way off. 3 had a feeling this loop wasn't going to end well.

"Why isn't it shutting down!?"

Marina started hitting the sides of the terminal. "Come on! Come on!"

A few massive explosions came from within the Hole Puncher, sending bits of machinery crashing onto the platform. The glass dome exploded open, and the electrode within started glowing bright enough to outshine the sun. They stared at the rising glow in rapt fear.

Then, with a castrophony that could be heard far away in space, the Hole Puncher exploded.

The blast obliterated the Hole Puncher, as well as 3/4ths of Inkopolis.

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 277**

* * *

At 7:14 in the morning, half a city was woken up when 277 clones of Agent 3 jerked awake screaming.

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 299**

* * *

"So you're sure that all the safety procedures are in place?"

"Yes, I'm sure, we've double and triple checked it."

"Are you positive? Because I don't want to explode again."

"I'm as sure as I can be. This will work, and if it doesn't, I can shut it down like that." Marina said with a snap of her fingers.

3 stepped away from her terminal. "Alright, I trust you."

"Thank you. Okay, if there are no more concerns," Marina pressed the button for the intercom, "Everyone, stand behind the shields and get ready, we're about to turn it on."

Everyone took their positions. From deep inside the Deep-Sea Metro the rest of the Agent 3s stood watching the proceedings on large tv screens. With some trepidation Marina hit the on switch.

3 watched the Hole Puncher nervously as it activated, waiting for the first sign of malfunction.

It never came.

Instead, the Hole Puncher came to life with a humming sound that gradually got loud enough to shake the ocean around them. The lights grew brighter and brighter until you had to squint to look at them. The glass dome hand numerous fast-moving threads of light connecting the electrode to the glass, changing colors from green to yellow, and growing brighter.

Finally, the megaphone within the mouth began lighting up and sparking.

"That's normal. Energy spikes in all systems, but well within acceptable bounds. Entering the final phase! Prepare for the discharge!"

The energy focused into the megaphone, charging into a glowing ball. A loud beep signaled from Marina's terminal, and she hit another large button.

From the speaker, a massive shockwave shot out.

For a moment, everything was black. 3 felt like he was falling and staying in place at the same time. Then the shockwave seemed to been pulled back into the Hole Puncher, and with it the world returned.

* * *

"Hold on to your tentacles…"

"It's Inkopolis news time!"

"Before we talk about anything else, we gotta talk about the event that's been sweeping the 'net for the last 3 hours."

"News hardly gets fresher than that."

The screen behind them displayed a blurry image of a massive silhouette with glowing green eyes sitting in the ocean.

"At around 9 this morning, this thing appeared in the middle of the ocean out of nowhere. No one knows what it is, or what it does, or even how it got there, but it sure creeped them out!"

"I'm creeped out just looking at the picture. What happened to it?"

"That's the best- or worse- part! After about an our it just sank right back into the ocean!"

"Wow. So hey, if you were planning on going out in a boat today, maybe don't!"

"The Coast Guard is launching an investigation and will report any information they find to the public."

"Until they give the okay, I think I'll stay out of the ocean."

"Onto other news…"

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Commander TarTar was feeling a little something called panic.

He was being shut out of his own systems. No matter the security, no matter the firewalls, someone forced him out. He'd lost control over the test chambers, then the Sanitizing Station. Even the train system was lost to him. Someone was hacking away his administrative capabilities, and somehow he _couldn't fight back._

It wasn't long before he was effectively trapped within the telephone in the main station.

Someone walked before him, wielding a circular saw.

"I'd say sorry, but I'm not sorry at all. The Deep-Sea Metro doesn't belong to you anymore, TarTar."

"I cannot fail my prime directive. The new species are unworthy. They must be replaced, so someone better can take their place, and be guided to greatness." TarTar argued.

"We can guide ourselves."

Anything else TarTar might have said was drown out by the sound of the saw cutting through the base of the phone. In short order, TarTar was cut off from the electricity, robbing him of the ability to speak, hear, or even see.

Shortly after that he was unceremoniously chucked into the ocean, and the briny blue fried his circuits.

* * *

Iso Padre squinted as the heavy doors before him opened and sunlight hit his eyes.

"Alright, here you go. This door opens to a spot about 10 miles from Inkopolis. Keep walking south and you'll find a small town about two hours away. Talk to the officials there and I'm sure they'll get you sorted out. If you don't know what to do with yourself, stick around and wait for help."

He could hardly believe it. Being free from the Metro was the dream, but for freedom to come so suddenly gave recent events an almost surreal quality. He hadn't even lost all his memories (though the few he still had were pretty vague), he figured his head would've been completely empty before he got out.

Still, he wasn't going to look a gift seahorse in the mouth, and neither were the other residents of the metro, who had already started pushing through. Iso Padre went with the crowd, but stopped and turned to the young man who had opened the door.

"Young squire, before I go, I would like to say thank you for the freedom you've given us."

The young man simply nodded. "Get out there and have a good life."

Iso Padre did just that.

* * *

At 9:43 AM, an average family received this voice mail from the son they were having trouble finding that day.

" _Hey mom, hey dad. Sorry to vanish, but I have a lot of important things to take care of. I'm perfectly safe, and as soon as they're done I'll be back, so don't panic. Love ya both, bye."_

* * *

Deep underground in the hidden domes the Octolings had made their home, an unexpected guest brought an incredible gift to them.

"General Octavio, we've run as many tests as possible. The battery… it just doesn't run out of energy. As far as we can tell there's no reason it can't work… well, forever."

Octavio couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Forever… infinite electricity…"

"Well, it's less infinite and more, 'The values have been changed so reality thinks it has so much charge that the earth will die before the battery does', but you know, to-may-to to-mah-to."

Octavio turned to their guest. "You… nobody would give away something like this for no reason. What do you want from us?"

"Two things: one, no more hostilities towards the Inklings. Two, let's call it a partnership…"

* * *

 **Three months later**

Agent 3 strolled casually towards the coast of Inkopolis. Everyone who had gathered on the coast, the bystanders, the news crew, and police, gawked at his approach. The fact that he was walking _over_ ocean, on _thin air,_ may have freaked them out a bit. Or maybe it was the 50 other Agent 3s behind him.

He was dressed casually, with his preferred style of a cap and parka. However, he also had the addition of a chrome gauntlet with a screen built into it on his right arm, a metallic square device worn like a back pack, and chrome boots, all of which had their fair share of glowing lights. The tech didn't strictly need to be chrome, and there were maybe a few more lights than necessary, but when you're going for the "Superior technology" look it was a good bit of visual shorthand.

The rest of the Agent 3s were wearing what they'd decided would be their official security uniform, a black jumpsuit with Yellow armor covering the torso. They also had the chrome boots, gauntlet, and back pack device. They didn't have the helmets, because he needed everyone to see that they were the same person. It would make it easier to believe him when he told them they were all clones.

See, once the goal of stopping the time loop was over, he discovered that the Hole Puncher had failed to get rid of the clones. It was a possibility they had considered, but didn't have the time to deal with. The hope was fixing the tear in reality would get rid of them, but well, it didn't. So with an entire species of themselves still knocking around, the 3s decided before they could go and enjoy life like they'd wanted to, they had to sort themselves out first.

They stayed underground and converted the Metro to their homes, and during this period of rebuilding that they realized they were sitting on incredibly advanced knowledge in the field of reality manipulation, and furthermore, that reality manipulation had many more applications than creating and repairing holes in reality. It was like having the console commands in a video game. As long as you knew what codes to type in, you could do almost whatever you want.

So they created portable reality manipulators, that was the devices strapped to their backs, and a device that let them input the codes, aka the gauntlets. With the devices they convinced reality that there was no reason they couldn't maintain altitude despite having no floor to stand on, and they made their way to Inkopolis to announce their existence.

He could have done that at the start and let the government figure out what to do. But there were a lot of them, and they'd all lived longer than anyone else and studied and became proficient in just about all artforms and skills available, so, hadn't they kind of earned something? Why shouldn't they be their own sovereign nation? It sounded like a good time.

Agent 3, and the rest of the Agents, stopped in front of the coast and he spoke to the crowd.

"Hello. Sorry for the theatrics, but I figured some kind of power move wouldn't hurt. My name is Will. I am the representative for the newly formed Republic of 3."

Agent 3 held his hand over his heart, with 3 fingers extended. All of the Agent 3s behind him mimicked the salute.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

* * *

 **Number of 3s: 300**

* * *

 **So last chapter I tried to fix a typo and wound up making the exact same typo. I know I can edit my stories, I tried to do that but it didn't seem to work and frankly I don't want to mess with things, lest I break something. If you're desperate to know the name of Callie's voice actress, just google it.**

 **This chapter wound up being much longer than I thought it would. Still, it was fun to write, and hopefully it'll be fun to read. I have other plans for Bonus Chapters so you will get a few more chapters like these, though they'll all focus on a different plot. As said above Bonus Chapters aren't connected to the main chapters, so you wont miss anything if you decide to skip them.**

 **I don't think I said this anywhere else, but in case I'm supposed to, and in case you couldn't already guess, I don't own any of the rights to Splatoon. Surprising, I know.**

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**


	8. Chapter 7

"I've said it before, but just for safety's sake I'll say it again, don't mention my name around crowds."

"I wasn't planning on getting mobbed this afternoon. Don't worry."

"Okay, cool."

Callie held open the Café door. As Agent 3 walked in he took a chance to observe the environment. There were a few other squids there, eating their eats and drinking their drinks, but none of them paid them any mind as the two walked in.

"I'll get the drinks if you get a table." 3 said to Callie.

"Sounds good. Get me a Vanilla Latte?"

Vanilla Latte? Didn't she prefer- oh right, time travel. 3 nodded and walked towards the counter, already resolved to not get her a Vanilla Latte. Guess Callie got to have a surprise new favorite beverage today.

It was the first day of Agent 3's time off, and up until now it'd been very uneventful. Callie and Marie left shortly after buying him a hotel room, he and the Cap'n discussed some other things about the Splatoon, and 3 went and got those zapfish he'd retrieved earlier and dropped them off at the power plant. The guards grand plan for catching him had apparently been to leave out a box of donuts as bait, so, they either weren't trying or had a very low opinion of him.

From there, again, uneventful. 3 browsed the internet, watched cheap hotel TV, showered, and turned in early. The new day was looking to be just as uneventful, right up until Callie called him up asking if he wanted to go get drinks.

After a few minutes 3 walked to the table Callie had chosen and sat the drinks down. Callie gave a quick thanks and took a sip of her drink, only to remove the straw from her mouth once she tasted it.

"Woah, this isn't a Vanilla Latte."

"Nope." 3 confirmed. "Good though, right?"

"Really good! What is it?"

"That would be Chai Tea."

"Tea?! I thought Tea was for old people, no one told me it was good." Callie said, amazed.

"I guess old people know how to drink."

"I guess, thanks for getting it for me… actually, why did you get it for me when I asked for a latte?"

"Call it a hunch. Here's a better question, why'd you invite me out here?"

Fun as it was to hang out with Callie again it was still odd for her to send any kind of invite for no identifiable reason. He could safely rule out her asking him on a date, she showed zero interest in him in the original time line and she certainly wasn't going to develop some after one day. Contrary to what fiction likes to tell you, it takes longer than a that for actual romance to develop.

"Well, I had nothing to do today, and Marie was busy, so I figured why not?"

3 raised an eyebrow at that, to which Callie just chuckled.

"Hey c'mon, we are on a team now, you know. Besides, you're trustworthy enough."

"You decided that after knowing me for a few hours?"

"Call me naïve, but I think people who try to save cities are pretty trustable." Callie said with an eyeroll.

"Hmm, fair enough. So now that you have me here, was there anything you wanted to talk about? 'Cause I'll warn you, I'm not the best conversationalist."

"Well, introductions are a good start. 'Course you can just google my name to learn everything about me," Callie's face and tone darkened as she stated that fact, but she recovered her mood with a small inward sigh, "…So you can start. Tell me something interesting about yourself."

"… Uh, I dunno. What do you want to know? I'm not that interesting."

"I find that hard to believe… Where are you from?"

"North Country."

"Oh, I've heard of that place. That's the place that's always kinda cold isn't it?"

"That is a fair description."

"That why you're wearing a Forge Parka even though it's 60 degrees out?"

Agent 3 looked down at his new Parka. They finally had a one in stock, so of course he grabbed it immediately.

"I like parkas." 3 gave by way of explanation.

"I guess you'd have to, to put up with the sweating. Well anyway, why'd you come down to Inkopolis? Must have been important if you were willing to come down with no money."

"I had plenty of money," 3 said defensively, "Just not enough for an apartment. And anyways, as for why I came down…"

3 considered his answer for a moment. Callie was more correct than she'd ever know when she said it had to have been for an important reason. He wished he could say the same about why he'd gone back in time, but whatever the reasons for that no one was in any hurry to tell him. He'd spent a lot of time trying to come up with why. Probably would have spent more time pondering if not for the fact that it gave him a headache and didn't get anything done. Maybe it was random. Maybe the universe reset and he was the only one who didn't notice, who the heck knows?

3 shrugged and went with his reasoning from the first time he moved. "I came down to Inkopolis because I was tired of living with my parents, and it's where everyone goes to get their big start."

"Oh, so you came here to try and be a big shot then?"

"Eh, not really. My plan was to just do turf wars until I had a reason to stop doing turf wars. As luck would have it I found a reason pretty quick."

"Ah I get it. You're one of them directionless types, eh?"

3 thought for a moment and realized that, actually, at this point he probably had the most direction he'd ever had in his life.

"I guess I am." 3 said, smirking at the irony, "Given present company, I'd say it's working out for me."

"Heh, that a flirt?" Callie grinned, more at the chance to tease than anything else, "You that happy to get a drink with me?"

"No."

3 couldn't help but chuckle at how taken aback she was at his quick response. This in turn seemed to offended her, which only made him laugh harder.

"Don't get me wrong, anyone would be happy to be with you," 3 assured, still grinning, "I'm just not looking for anyone at the moment. I was talking about eating with a, celebrity. A lot of people would kill to be where I'm at right now."

"Hmm," Callie tapped her finger against her cup, deciding if she should pretend to be mad or not. "I guess I see your point. So not interested in dates at all?" She asked, deciding that asking about him would be a more valuable use of her time.

"Eh… I'm waiting for the right girl, we'll say." 3 said diplomatically.

"I get that. I haven't found anyone I like either. Neither has Mar- _my cousin._ Though honestly, I think she should hurry up and find someone she can be sarcastic and aloof with. It'd be nice to have her direct all that at someone else in her free time."

At the talk of Marie's love life, a certain agent came to mind. "I'm sure she will, eventually. Maybe someone outgoing and annoyingly friendly."

Callie chuckled. "I'm not sure she'd put up with someone like that for long."

3 shrugged "Opposites attract, or so they say."

Honestly, he was never exactly sure what the deal with Marie and Agent 4 was. They hadn't been official before he time traveled, at least to his knowledge, and they could have easily just been good friends. But sometimes Marie would look at 4 in a certain way, and it make him wonder…

Eh, well, none of his business either way.

He'd respect her privacy if she respected his.

* * *

Marie isn't a creeper.

Which is exactly what someone who was a creeper might say, but she isn't!

She had very good reasons to be digging through Agent 3's social media.

Something about that kid wasn't kosher. She knew that for a fact, because as she typed his number in it appeared in the recommended, unlabeled. Phone numbers only appeared in the recommended when you've called them or they've called you before, and Marie was certain she'd never called him.

So why and how did Agent 3 call her? What did he say, if anything? Marie couldn't think of a satisfying answer, hence the suspicion.

There were other things about him that bothered her. He was way too chill about meeting celebrities. I mean sure, the Squid Sisters weren't like, _super_ popular outside of Inkopolis, and he'd only moved fairly recently, but he'd been living here long enough that he should definitely know who they were. What kind of 14-year-old didn't flip when meeting a celebrity? She might've let that slide, but then the phone thing happened.

The content of his facebook didn't help things either. He barely posted anything so she couldn't learn much from that, but his mom (who seemed like a nice lady, to be fair) posted basically everything, she was a gold mine of information. And what she learned was that he was… basically normal. A bit anti-social, but nothing out of the ordinary. Dad's an attorney, Mom's a home maker, went to regular schools, perfectly average.

So how did he learn to fight as well as he did? He had a decent enough win/loss ratio before, but after he moved it suddenly spiked up. At max 10 games a day, and he didn't lose a single one. Oh yeah, and he was fighting and winning a secret war. You don't just _do_ that. It takes training, a lot of training. And as far as she could tell, he didn't have any.

She'd keep searching for an answer to all the weirdness, just as soon as she thought of where else to look. She'd learned all she could from his social media. There was some kind of mystery surrounding the kid, and she was determined to figure it out.

Marie glanced at the computer's clock, and saw that she'd spent 20 minutes already trying to dig up dirt on Agent 3.

…Eh, actually she wasn't that determined.

She'd try to find out what she could, but he was at least trustworthy enough that he wasn't a threat or anything, so no rush. And anyways, she was supposed to have been working on lyrics for the last 20 minutes. Better get on that…

Right after she got a sandwich. Can't be a lyrical genius on an empty stomach.

* * *

 **Next Day**

* * *

Agent 3 leaned against the wall and looked around at Sheldon's Workshop. Sheldon himself was looking over the now disassembled Hero Shot, talking to himself and using exactly too many words as he examined the gun's innards. Cap'n Cuttlefish stood next to him, nodding occasionally and pretending to listen with practiced ease. 3 had never seen the place before, even though Sheldon had been an ally since he became an Agent. It… looked like a workshop, he guessed. He'd have brought out his phone a while ago but he had a feeling the situation was just slightly serious enough that it'd be rude for him to do so.

"…The weapon is in good condition, even considering the new parts that have been added. For this to be the case, especially considering the amount of time the weapon must have been in use during so many missions, regular maintenance had to have been performed on it. Am I right in my assumption?

"… huh? Oh, sorry, you say something?" 3 asked, having tuned Sheldon out long ago

"Yes, I did. I asked if you performed regular maintenance on the blaster while you were using it."

"Yeah, of course. Once a day as soon as I was done with missions."

Sheldon nodded approvingly. "Good. When I was told by Mr. Cuttlefish that my weapon had been seized, I feared the worse. I'm glad to know it was taken by someone who understands the importance of maintenance."

3 nodded. The Hero Blaster had served him well, keeping it clean was the least he could do. 'sides, it'd suck if it broke on him in the middle of a mission.

"What I'm not glad to learn, is that you saw fit to put a lot of junk in it!" Sheldon said, holding up a piece of the offending "junk"

Oh right. _That._

"Well, it didn't shoot fast enough. I had to upgrade it."

"So you put junk in my weapon?"

"Poor form, Agent 3." Cap'n Cuttlefish chided, "Can't go messin' with people's things like that. I mean, borrowing someone's car doesn't give ya permission to paint it."

"Well good thing I didn't borrow his car then. And it's not junk, I bought all the parts from a reputable business."

"That's only technically true at best. None of the parts you added were meant for use in weapons. If I had to guess, I'd say this all came from some generic hardware store."

"Where else was I supposed to buy parts from?"

"A weapons store! Such as, for example, mine!"

"I'd have done that if I had the money," 3 shrugged, "But I didn't."

"The very last place you should cheap out is with your weapons." Sheldon scolded.

"I don't know what to tell you, it was either jury rig something or walk into a fight with a gun that didn't shoot fast enough. I'd have had you do it if I had the money, but again, I didn't."

That wasn't even a cover story, handing it over to Sheldon and paying him to upgrade it would have been the preferred option (Also as Sheldon would have recognized his weapon, it'd probably get him in contact with Cap'n Cuttlefish sooner, a shame he hadn't thought of that). But 3 knew how the hero shot works thanks to maintaining it for years, and buying a screwdriver and assorted bits and pieces to use for makeshift upgrades was fairly cheap. Cheaper than getting a professional upgrade anyways.

"Now Sheldon," Cap'n Cuttlefish said, cutting off Sheldon just as he opened his mouth to go on a lecture, "Before you tell us all about the importance of weapon maintenance, Agent 3 _is_ living on a very tight financial situation. And not a 'livin on instant noodles' kinda tight, more a 'livin on a park bench' kinda tight. Wasn't nice of him ta take apart yer weapon without permission, but ya gotta admit his logic is sound. I mean, why go to the store if ya can't buy anything anyway?"

Sheldon considered this, "Hmm, yes, I see. Very well then. I can hardly blame you for choosing to eat over gun customization. I wasn't aware of your financial situation so I do apologize for any offense I may have caused. It was not my intention, and furthermore as much as I respect the delicate art of weapon crafting and as much as I believe in doing it properly, I would never suggest that it takes financial precedent over other things, like eating or-"

"Yeah yeah, I got it." 3 interrupted, shortening the conversation by an hour, "No worries, it's fine."

"I'm glad to hear that. I must also say," 3 and the Cap'n groaned, "I can't be too mad, since you've been using my weapon in defense of the city. There could be no better purpose for it. That said, I cannot allow these upgrades to remain. While they technically serve their purpose, they are wholly inefficient, and weight the weapon down."

"Yer not gonna send Agent 3 into battle without enough firepower, are ya?"

"Of course not. Mr. Cuttlefish, if I may ask, when are you going to send Agent 3 back into the field?"

"The break ends tomorrow. Though I considered making it longer, seein' as Agent 3's been doing turf wars to pass the time when he's supposed to be restin'."

"It's how I make money."

"Yer supposed to be taking a break from fightin'."

"Fighting Octolings."

"That there's following the letter of the law, not the spirit, and ya know it.

"Not like I ever get splatted."

Cap'n Cuttlefish squinted angrily at 3.

Sheldon spoke up, "Er, if I may. The break ends tomorrow?"

The Cap'n sighed, "Yes, it does."

"More than enough time for me to strip the weapon of its upgrades and replace it with better ones. By the time you get it back, its rate of fire will be even better."

Sheldon was just going to upgrade it like that? No asking for money or Power Eggs?

"Oh, well, thank you."

"And don't worry about payment. I'll write up a tab and you can pay me back when your finances are more stable."

"Oh… thanks…"

* * *

A few hours later and it was night time. Agent 3 walked through town towards the hotel.

Besides the meeting with Sheldon the day had been uneventful. And calling the meeting with Sheldon eventful was generous.

He'd done turf wars, mostly. The guys and gals he fought were getting a little better at fighting against him, but it still wasn't enough and he'd gone the whole day without being splatted or losing a match. It was boring.

Besides turf wars and browsing the internet he didn't have much to do at all. Even the internet wasn't that exiting, because a lot of his favorite videos and music hadn't been made yet. And from his perspective, all the memes were stale. That was a side effect of time travel no one warned you about.

3 slowed his walk as he heard muffled music emanating from a club on his left. Muffled club music wasn't that noteworthy, but this was loud enough to make the window vibrate. It sounded like Death Metal. 3 couldn't see past she posters and ads plastered on the windows, who the heck was playing?

Eyebrow raised, 3 scanned the posts for the "who's playing tonight" list.

 **8:00 PM – Overly Offensive – Genre – Death Metal**

 **Guitarist: Lars Swordtip**

 **Bassist: Shirley Kirkii**

 **Drummer: Johnny Brevis**

 **Lead Singer: Pearl Hime**

Huh, Pearl was playing tonight. Neat.

3 started walking again. He was looking forward to getting back to missions, if only so he'd have something to do and people to fight who could put up a challen-

Wait, Pearl?

3 walked back to the list and reread it carefully.

What the- Pearl!?

3 reached for the door. No way, why would Pearl be in Inkopolis Plaza? He knew she was in a metal band before switching to rap, even listened to a few of her old songs, but he'd never heard of her being in the plaza. That- that's way too much of a coincidence, right? Why would she be here-

3 opened the door and was slammed with a sound wave. What he heard didn't sound so much like music, it was more like someone screaming swears into a microphone while death metal played in another room.

Yep, that's Pearl.


	9. Chapter 8

With the burst of a splatbomb, another Octoling was out of the game.

"That's 3…"

Agent 3 heard another two jumping towards him. He inked the side of a tower and climbed up to the top before they could introduce him to their hospitality. The skaters who frequented Black Belly Skate Park would probably tell him the tower had a proper name, and was the cornerstone of any good Skate Park. Unfortunately for them, Agent 3 never felt the desire to do a sick kick flip, so he didn't know the first thing about skate boarding. The only reason he was in the Park at all was because a couple of Octolings were attempting to transfer a stolen zapfish through it while it was shut down for the day.

Speaking of which, two octolings landed before the tower.

Agent 3, realizing he now had a golden opportunity, grinned, "It's over Octolings!" he said, holding his arms out, "I have the high ground!"

"Whatever advantages you have don't matter! We'll tear down your high ground!" One of the Octolings said as she lobbed a Splatbomb at him.

3 turned to the side, neatly dodging the bomb, "Yeah I guess it was a bit much expecting you too have seen that terrible, terrible movie. Can I convince one of you to say 'You underestimate my power'?"

3 was answered with another bomb, so with a sigh and some disappointment, he threw his own down to them and leaped off the tower. One Octoling dodged to the left and tried to fire up at him as he fell, but his accuracy proved better and she was splatted as he hit the ground.

"4…"

The other Octoling fired upon him. Agent 3 dived into the ink and jumped out of it to the side, throwing a splatbomb at the soldier as he did. The bomb landed behind her, forcing her to dodge towards him to escape the blast. This proved her undoing, and she was shot down in short order.

"5..."

" _Well done Agent 3! Only 3 more."_

3 started towards the Zapfish on the other end of the park.

"Gotta wonder why the Octos have the female only teams."

" _Not sure m'self. Would be the best way ta cut down on fraternization I suppose. Not ta brag but back in my day the original Splatoon had a girl on it and there was no problem… Then again she was the type that if ya tried anything with her she'd bite your d- uh, face, off. So maybe she's not the best example."_

"Sounds like a lovely lady."

" _She is. Runs a fashion chain these days."_

Agent 3 continued towards the Zapfish at the end of the park. Along the way he snagged a canned special, containing an Inkzooka, that the Cap'n had explained where put into the kettles via a "special delivery system". 3 had learned in the previous time line that the delivery system was actually just a spud gun. Hey, if it worked.

Agent 3 idly inspected the Canned Special as he walked.

"You think I could buy these somewhere?"

" _What would ya buy 'em for?"_

"All of this. I'm thinking if I showed up with like 50 of these, or 50 Krakens or something, I could clear shop pretty quickly."

" _Oh, yer a 'salt the earth' kinda guy, eh?"_

"Just saying, it'd speed things up."

" _Don't know the rules, but I doubt you'd have the money for it at present either way."_

3 sighed. Everything came back to money, "Yeah, probably."

" _Ah, but enough'a that. Look alive Agent 3! Those Octoling's could be hiding anywhere in all that ink."_

Before Agent 3 was a section of park that had been coated in Purple Ink. If he recalled correctly, there were 2 hidden in the ink. The last would superjump at him once he got close to either the zapfish or the secret scroll, so she wasn't a concern for now. 3 pulled out a Splatbomb.

" _I really need autobombs for this sort of thing."_ He thought to himself. Autobombs were fun. Use them right and they were fantastic for making people mad.

"I know you're in there. Just come out so we can get this over with."

He waited… and waited… and nothing.

3 shrugged, "Fine, make it difficult."

3 threw the bomb and ducked into his ink puddle as it exploded. Once his ammo was refilled, he got up and threw another. Only a fool walked into an ambush. The Octolings could hide in the ink until he systematically painted the entire rest of the park with bombs, or they could come to him and everyone could get on with their lives.

After the 3rd bomb the Octolings got the picture, jumped out of the ink, and charged at him, firing their blasters. They strafed in opposite directions. The one to his left came in close while she strafed, the one to his right maintained distance and tried to circle around him. The one on the left kept the pressure on, while the one on the right would cut off an escape route and would most likely dive in to attack as soon as she saw an opening. Very well done for what was probably an impromptu plan.

Still facing the octolings, 3 jumped back and fired the Hero Shot over his shoulder, then dived in the fresh ink and swam away. The Octolings chased after him, determined to deny him a chance to breathe. But then suddenly, Agent 3 jumped from the Ink and dive kicked the closest soldier. The soldier's Octoshot was kicked from her hands and she was knocked to the ground. His feet barely touched the ground before he was turning and firing at the other soldier. She hadn't expected his sudden change in direction, and had to suddenly stop to try and correct her positioning. That moment of shaky footing was enough for 3, and she found herself splatted.

"6…"

3 turned to the other soldier, expecting her to have dived after her gun and wanting to stop her before she had the chance. Instead, he was surprised to find her already on her feet, swinging at him with a wild Haymaker. 3 leaned back and felt the punch just barely graze his nose. She kept coming though. To the left and to the right, 3 weaved around another two punches. And then as she cocked her fist back for a fourth punch 3 cut her off with a jab to the face.

The Octoling staggered back, clutching her nose with one hand, "OW! Son of a-"

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," 3 said, cutting her off and protecting the audience from ever harmful swear words, "But you shouldn't fist fight the guy holding a gun."

Agent 3 aimed the Hero Shot at her to demonstrate his point. She looked unsure of herself for a moment, but must have decided she was too committed to back out now, because instead of surrendering, or doing anything reasonable, she just yelled,

"Don't tell me how to fight, scum!"

She took a step back and spun a full 360 degrees, with her leg outstretched and her heel spinning towards him at a high speed. Agent 3 caught her by the ankle and stopped the attack cold.

"Yeah, don't try to spin kick him, either."

The Octoling grit her teeth and growled, **["Up yours! You'll get what's coming, you son of a-"]**

3 cut her off again by pressing the nozzle of the Hero Shot into her midsection. He pulled the trigger and with a loud pop she was splatted

"7. And there is no call for that kind of language."

" _Excellent work Agent 3! Go claim your reward."_

Agent 3 nodded and was about to take a step when the Cap'n spoke up again.

" _Er, actually hold on. Did you understand what she was sayin' at the end there?"_

Oh, shoot, right. Was it actually reasonable for him to understand Octoling at this point? Better play it safe.

"Nah. I just assumed she wasn't using polite words. An insult sounds the same in every language."

" _Ah, true enough. Alright then, let's wrap this up."_

3 walked towards the Zapfish. With only one Octoling left to worry about he was sure he could say the mission was as good as done. Just as Soldier number 8 revealed themselves.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

The 8th Octoling (No not Agent 8, don't get your hopes up) observed the target from afar. Checking in with the rest of her squad had given her radio silence, so it was safe to say she was the last woman standing. Figures, the kind of track record he had they'd need way more than 8 to deal with him. But they were in enemy territory so 8 soldiers were the most they could allow; any more and keeping their presence unknown would have been a challenge. Or so the higher ups said. There had to have been a better way to smuggle the zapfish out. Wasn't there? She felt like there was, but the ones giving out orders were higher ranked than her, so what did she know? Wouldn't have changed the fact that she was stuck in this situation now anyways.

The target approached the zapfish and aimed at the shield, but instead of breaking it he turned around and scanned the area. Did he suspect an attack? Actually this was when she was supposed to super jump in and ambush him, so good intuition on his part. Somehow she didn't feel comfortable about attacking.

The target looked around the park for another second, then with a shrug turned back and fired upon the shield, breaking it.

Oh shoot, she definitely had to jump in now. He could _not_ be allowed to claim the zapfish.

" _Alright, gotta stop him, prepare to attack."_

She thought to herself as she stepped out. Despite knowing it was time, she still found it difficult to make the jump. I mean, he took out 7 other soldiers no problem. Did that really say anything good about her chances?

No, that didn't matter. She was an Octoling, she had Octo Pride, she had a duty to take him out.

He was walking away with the Zapfish. She prepared to jump. She prepared a bit more. A bit more. A little bit more…

"… There is no frickin' way I'm jumping."

The Octoling ducked into her ink and resolved to stay there for however long it took for things to be safe.

Octo Pride Octo Shmide, that dude was dangerous! Who cares if she got yelled at, she thought that was better than being on the bad end of a beatdown, thank you very much.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

Back in Octovalley Cap'n Cuttlefish took the Zapfish out of 3's hands.

"Well done, Agent 3, Mission complete! And might I say, I was mighty impressed with how you dealt with them Octos."

"All in the reflexes." 3 said, casually stretching. _"Wonder where that last octoling went though…"_

"Whatever it is, it's served ya well. Two Zapfish and it's barely past lunch time."

"And we'll have even more after the day is done. Where to next?" 3 asked, pretending to not already know the answer.

The Cap'n seemed a bit hesitant at that, "Another one? Doncha have things ya want to do?"

"Nope."

"Doncha want lunch at least?"

"Not hungry."

"Well, just 'cause ya don't feel hungry doesn't mean you shouldn't eat."

3 saw where this was going, "Cap'n, I'm good. I can stop and eat a sandwich or something if it's that important, but I don't want to stop fighting anytime soon."

"And I appreciate your 'can do' spirit, but it kinda concerns me how much yer throwing yerself into this."

"I rested like you asked. If I stop at 2 zapfish a day then you officially lied when you said I'd get things done faster with your help."

"Come on now, don't accuse me of lyin'. I know yer skilled, but you're only 14, and I've seen what happens to soldiers that wear themselves out. Don't you have any friends you want to visit with?"

"Besides Callie and Marie? Not in Inkopolis."

Not in North Country either, much to his parent's annoyance. Actually there was Pearl now, but they still needed to become friends again, and the situation with her was… kind of weird. 3's brow furrowed at the thought. He'd taken a table with some half-baked idea of talking to her after her song was done, but had to leave once he realized he had no idea what to say to her. He tried to think of what to say while waiting in the club, but Pearl's singing did to his thought process what a brick did to a window. He'd have to talk to her without making himself look crazy… somehow, but… how?

Ah he was probably just going to wing it again, let's be honest.

"Well, don't ya have any hobbies? A job?" Cap'n asked, bringing 3 out of his thoughts.

"No job, and no hobbies."

"Well now, everyone has a hobby!"

"I play video games and browse the web."

"That doesn't count. If you don't have a hobby then you should get one! What's something you like to do? What's something you're good at?"

"I like and am good at playing video games and browsing the web, but apparently that doesn't count."

"… my my, I forgot how direction less kids are these days…" Cap'n said, sounding concerned now, "Well, if you're not good at anything, why doncha join a class 'r something? I think they have free ones in down at the civic center."

3 paused to think of a reason why he couldn't… and failed, surprisingly. Why didn't he join a class? He had a bunch of extra time now and it's not like he was getting much out of the outdated-from-his-perspective internet.

Agent 3 nodded, conceding the cap'n's point. "I guess I could do that."

"Excellent!"

"I'm still going to get more Zapfish first."

The Cap'n gave a resigned sigh, "'course."

"I don't get why you want to limit me so much. You've seen how skilled I am."

"I wanna limit you because this is active combat. It's hard on people no matter how skilled they are. And I'd prefer to have ya trained before you go out in actual combat. You've done good work, a lot of good work, but I still don't like the idea of sending ya in without putting you through a proper training session. If it was more than just yerself goin' in it might be different. Since you're goin' in solo I'd rather be cautious."

Well, hard to be mad at that kind of logic. The Cap'n may have wanted kids to fight, but at least he wanted them to be safe. Safe-ish. Whatever.

"I appreciate the concern, I really do. But I got this. Have faith that I wouldn't put myself out there if I didn't think I could do it?"

The Cap'n debated with himself before finally relenting. "Alright, alright. One more zapfish today, just so I can get another good look at what you can do. If I like what I see, and honestly considerin' everything I probably will, I'll letcha do more missions tomorrow, no complaints."

That was probably the best he could ask for without pushing it. And he didn't want to push it, despite wanting to get this all taken care of ASAP. Cap'n was a friend, and annoying as it was he was just watching out for him.

"Okay, deal. Now, where to next?"

"I've gotten news of some weird happenings going on at Blue fin Depot…"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

"What kind of person is Agent 3?"

Callie looked away from the tv and raised an eyebrow at Marie. It was an out of nowhere type question, or at least it felt like one. Usually when they were lounging on the couch, watching their shows, Marie didn't ask about anything or anyone.

"What kind of person is he?"

"Yeah. You hung out with him a few days ago didn't you? What was he like?"

"… Uh, I'unno. The kind of person who knows good drinks? Did you know tea was good? I didn't but he had me drink this Chai stuff and it was amazing."

"Come on, be serious… you like tea now?"

"It was really good! No one ever told tea was good, it's a conspiracy or something."

"Wow, you like something that isn't made entirely of sugar, never thought I'd see the day… Anyways, no, c'mon what's he like?"

Callie looked off to the side in thought. "He's nice enough. I had to lead the conversation the whole time but he's pretty easy to talk to."

"Hm. Learn anything new about him?"

"Few things. He's from North Country."

She already knew that. "Anything else?"

"Well, he likes turf wars," So does everyone else, "No brothers or sisters or anything," Already knew that, "he's not looking to date anyone…" Huh?

"How did that come up?" Marie asked, suspicious.

"Casually." Callie replied, shrugging, "Why're you so curious about him? I didn't think you'd care as long as he's saving Inkopolis. You don't have the hots for him yourself, do you?"

"What? No."

"Hmmm…" Callie stared critically at Marie, with her finger and thumb on her chin.

"I don't. He's a weird guy is all. And he's working with Gramps so I should Know what kind of person he is."

"You could just ask him if you want to know."

"… _could I? I probably could, but I kinda feel like talking to him directly would take a lot of the fun out of this…"_

"Well, I would," Marie said, taking the path of more resistance but also more amusement, "But I'm busy."

"With what?"

"Same thing as you, dingus. Giving out the news and writing lyrics."

"You sure you're busy with that last one? Because you didn't write too many lyrics when you had the chance a few days ago."

"Hey, I wrote more than you did that day."

"I was getting lunch with 3."

"Yeah, you would use that excuse, wouldn't you?"

Callie rolled her eyes, "Whatever, dork. Are you really asking about him because you're curious? It feels like there's something else to it."

Marie tapped her fingers on the couch. Did she tell Callie about the Phone situation? That might concern her more than Marie wanted…

"… I don't know, just, don't you think there's something off about him? Like there's a bigger picture about him we're not seeing, or, something?"

"'A bigger picture'… I don't know, he seemed normal to me."

"Yeah but isn't it just kinda weird how casual he is about fighting the octolings? And talking to celebrities? And being homeless?"

"…Yeah," Callie said with a slight cringe, "being cool with living on a bench is weird. But at the same time I don't mind so much. It's honestly kinda refreshing talking to someone who isn't like, fanboying all over."

"Sure, but… I don't know. It's weird. And I'd like to know what his deal is."

"Well, hey, if there is a mystery, hope you find the answers. Let me know if I can help"

"Thanks Callie."

With that, the two looked back to the Tv. Tuning into another exiting (Rerun) of "Festivity of Sovereignties".

"… Y'know Marie, he said he was looking for the right girl, so maybe if you convince him _you're_ the right girl he'd tell you all his secrets…"

"I don't want to date the hobo soldier child."

"I'm just sayin'."

"No."

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Agent 3 walked to the hotel in the same direction he walked last chapter. Today he defeated and retrieved 3 Zapfish, bringing his total up to 19. After that he went down to the civic center, just as the Cap'n had recommended, and sat in on the first class that sounded interesting. Which happened to be a baking class. He now knew how to bake cookies. Which was rad.

He didn't think about that as he walked down the sidewalk though, instead it was about the Situation with the Octolings, a considerably glummer topic. He was realizing just how many things were set up to limit how quickly he could deal with the whole situation. Part of that was the Cap'n. He hadn't expected Cuttlefish to try and limit his missions as much as he was, though maybe he should have?

The other issue was the Octolings themselves. It'd been easy to get through them when they were caught off guard and had bare bones defenses, but now they were doing a good job of slowing him down. He was back to about the same speed he was at the first time around, maybe a bit faster… except he was also a few days ahead of himself.

Huh, was he being unreasonably impatient about this? Maybe he wouldn't feel so rushed if he thought about his successes more.

…

Nah, screw that, he had things to do.

" _Thing is, the fact that I'm not going any faster might be on me…"_

His strategy had defaulted to "attack" and hadn't developed at all. Maybe it was about time to change that. There had to be some advantage beyond his combat prowess he hadn't thought to use. Frustratingly nothing came to mind. He'd have friends in high places if he hadn't time traveled. Actually, there's an idea, more friends. Maybe new friends even. Two agents fighting the Octolings would definitely speed things up. Except he had no idea who he could possibly recruit. 4 would be the go-to but he had no clue where she was at this point.

3 sighed in frustration, for once wishing he'd asked more questions about his friend's history.

" _I can worry about new agents later. For now, I have to worry about Pearl. Unfortunately."_

Her presence in Inkopolis Plaza was a surprise, but it made sense on reflection. Inkopolis Square wouldn't become popular until it was fixed up in another year or so. Until then, the place was a trash fire. A "You might get shanked here" kind of trash fire. In contrast, Inkopolis Plaza was a beacon for up and coming Inklings with big dreams. If Pearl wanted to be popular, and lord knows she did, there was hardly a better place for it.

And now that he knew where she was, he had to talk her into being friends again. She wasn't the first friend he'd have liked to meet again but he'd have to make do.

Nothing against Pearl, she was alright. It's just, you know, she had the whole "Don't you hurt her or else" attitude towards him when Agent 8 moved in with him, which just invited him to snark back because if she thought he'd just sit there and take it she was wrong (Of course he wasn't going to hurt the girl, c'mon). Still, couldn't exactly say they were hostile and things between them had calmed down, largely due to Marina and Agent 8 wanting them to be friends. They'd just never wanted to hang out with each other, is all.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, though, and wasn't about to just leave her there. As a time traveler it was his job to look after his friends, even if, and especially because, they didn't know they were friends yet.

3 turned the corner and paused, surprised.

" _Speak of the devil…"_

Pearl was standing in front of the club from yesterday, counting through a wad of bills.

Pearl looked a lot different than she had in the previous time line. Her hair (Tentacles?) was much longer and she no longer had (or had yet to acquire) the little crown she was so fond of. Instead of her pop outfit she wore a white jacket, a black sundress, and pink sneakers. Stylish, but a much more subdued kind of stylish, which ironically enough stood out more on Pearl if only because it was weird seeing her in clothes that weren't designer fashion. That scowl she wore while she counted her money though, there's no mistaking that.

Pearl's money counting slowed. As if she felt his eyes on her, she suddenly looked up at Agent 3.

"You see something you like?" Pearl challenged.

"Uh, nah, just… recognized you from one of your shows. You're Pearl, right?"

Pearls scowl eased into something more neutral. "Yeah, that's me. So, you saw one of my performances? What'd you think?"

"It was…" Ear splitting, headache inducing, "… pretty good."

Pearl tsked, "Pretty good. Right."

With a quick sigh pearl haphazardly shoved the money into her jacket pocket.

"Well, hope you didn't come for another performance, because we just did our last one."

"Oh, done for the day?"

"The day, the week, until the end of time."

"…wait, you're done singing?"

Pearl scowled again "More like the band's done with my singing. Band's breaking up. As of now, Metal sensation 'Overly Offensive', is done."

"Oh, wow. Sorry to hear that. Why're all you breaking up?"

"'Cause my former bandmates suck. Kept saying I was 'too loud' and 'didn't know how to sing'. They already picked someone to replace me."

"Oh, wow. That- That really sucks."

I mean, granted, both of the band's complaints were valid, but still to ditch her like that was harsh…

"Yeah, well, forget about them, they suck. Just another group of losers who underestimate me." Pearl said, indignant. She pointed a finger at 3 as she turned to leave, "Keep an eye out for the real star. I'm gonna be bigger than them, they'll see."

And she was right. All it would take is switching genres and meeting an Octoling. Somehow the knowledge that she would succeed despite present failings made him smile a little.

"I know you will." 3 told her.

Pearl stopped and looked at him, genuinely surprised at the compliment. A grin broke out on her face.

"Heck yeah, you know it."

Pearl looked down, thinking for a second, before nodding to herself and reaching down. There was a large cardboard box by her feet he hadn't seen before, and from it Pearl pulled out a CD case. With a flourish, Pearl whipped out a sharpie, wrote on the case, and threw it to 3.

Agent 3 was now holding a signed copy of an Overly Offensive album.

"Take good care of that." Pearl said with a wink, "That's gonna be a collector's item one day."

Ah, well that was nice of her. Even if he was never going to listen to it.

Actually wait, was that box filled with unsold albums?

that's a pretty big box…

Nevertheless, 3 pocketed the album and nodded to Pearl.

"Thanks, I'll treasure it. So, what are you going to do now? Can't imagine you're out of the game."

"Pff, No, no, of course not. I'm gonna scrounge up a new band, one that aren't a bunch of idiots…" Pearl sighed "Well, maybe I'll go solo for a bit. Guess I haven't done turf wars in a while, maybe I could do some of that again… Whatever. Whatever!"

Pearl picked up the album box.

"The take away here is that I'm gonna be famous, and you're smart for knowing that."

"Thanks. Gotta be smart at something."

Pearl chuckled, "Oh hey, never asked your name. Who are you?"

"Will."

"Will. Got it. When I'm famous call up my agent and name drop yourself, I'll get you a back stage pass, or something. See ya."

Pearl turned and started walking away.

"Right, will do. Have a good one…"

" _Do I leave it here? We're sort of friendly now, I don't think I can say anything else without looking stalker-ish…"_

Agent 3 turned to leave.

" _Wish I could keep her close by, but I gotta end things on a high note. At least now I have an excuse to talk to her later. That's one friend sort of made back, I'll call that a success. Honestly the only thing going wrong here is that she went in the same direction I was going to go. Now I have to go a different direction or it'd be awkward."_

And boy wasn't that annoying.

" _Need to figure out what else to do. More Agents is a good place to start. Still have no idea who I could possibly recruit for it-"_

3 froze.

…

Now _there's_ an idea… probably a stupid idea but…

"Hey Pearl!"

Pearl looked back to 3.

"You mentioned doing turf wars again. What if I told you I knew where you could get some… advanced training?"

Pearl considered it a moment. "I guess I'd be down for that. You know a place?"

"I do. One more question though. What do you think of secret agents?"

"… Huh?"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

-Chapter End-

* * *

 **I know, I know, this took too long. I need to step up my game.**

 **Changing up the scene breaks, hopefully it'll make the story easier to read.**

 **Pearl's younger design is based off a piece of fan art by an artist named Zambiie, look up "Pearl Fashion by Zambiie" if you want to find it. And look up the rest of Zambiie's art, they're good at what they do.**

 **A guest reviewer pointed out that it makes more sense for Cap'n Cuttlefish to just be able to speak Octoling than there being a whole pidgin situation. I can't argue with that, that's a much simpler explanation I did not see at all. That's why reviewers are needed, they point out the simple solutions.**

 **If you guys have the time, leave a review. they're always appreciated and pointing out the flaws will keep the story from going bad.**

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**

 **And, thank you for putting up with my wildly inconsistent updates.**


	10. Chapter 9

Agent 3 suppressed yet another yawn as he taped a note to his hotel room door.

He'd woken up at, brace yourselves, eight thirty in the morning. He'd then sat up in his bed trying not to fall asleep. He failed 3 times, but luckily he'd set up alarms to keep waking him up. Plus there was the guest next door, who was very vocal about wanting 3 to stop with the alarms.

Now that he was about as "up" as he could be, he was tiredly walking out of the hotel; his destination: Octo Valley.

It would be unfair to make Pearl fight against an Octo weapon, and yet he couldn't open up the next set of Kettles until the Octowhirl was defeated. Cap'n tended to wake up at ten, Pearl agreed to meet at nine thirty. So though it was an unholy hour for an Inkling, he had to get up early if he were to make this ridiculous plan of his work.

3 was totally gonna be extra vindictive towards the Octolings though, anyone who made him wake up early deserved it.

He sighed, as he cracked open one of the energy drink's he bought yesterday.

(Eelward's Electro Energy Drink: Purple Zapberry Flavor. What a "purple zapberry" was is information that has not yet been released to the public.)

"You better appreciate the effort, Pearl." He muttered, taking a drink.

Yum yum, tastes like Heart Failure.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

It'd taken 3 a half hour since he woke up to get down to the Valley and get suited up. It'd taken about 15 seconds after he started fighting to become wide awake. You know what's better than energy drinks? Adrenaline. Heaping table spoons of adrenaline.

The Octowhirl bounced up and reset itself after suffering a barrage of 3's ink, and 3 flew through the air away from it. The Octowhirl let out a roar, sections of the floor started rotating, and another wave of Octolings joined the fray.

Surprising how just a few extra boots on the ground made the Octowhirl actually challenging, he remembered not being impressed the first time he fought it.

What a wild way to start the morning. 3 almost liked it.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

"Someone's been here recently."

The Octoling Commander considered the information. She pointed to four of her soldiers, "You four, proceed further into the valley, if you see any enemies detain them immediately. If the path becomes blocked, wait there for further instructions. The rest of us will secure this area." The soldiers saluted and headed for their objective. The other three turned to start their sweep, but she stopped one. A younger soldier that everyone called Mimi. She did not like that nick name, but people called her that anyways.

"You, come with me. We're going to do a quick sweep through that shack. See if we can find anything useful"

"Yes ma'am."

Neither of them really expected to find anything in there, but you never knew. The Commanding Officer's lip curled as she entered the shack.

"Ugh, smells like… old people."

Mimi nodded. The Commanding officer took the left side of the shack, so she took the other.

Nothing on or under the bed, nothing on the nightstand. No clothes anywhere, did that mean that "Captain Cuttlefish" General Octavio mentioned in the briefing was gone? She hoped not, General Octavio wasn't going to like that.

Not seeing anything else to look through (It was a very small shack, after all), Mimi opened the fridge.

"Not that I expected to find anything, but, nothing of note in the fridge."

The Commander gave a nod and went back to looking through the cupboards. She went to shut the fridge, but noticed a plate sitting on one of the shelves. She picked up one of the circular foodstuffs from the plate and sniffed it. Smelled like fried Crab.

Well shoot, that was good eating. How did some hobo living in a shack get crab cakes?

She opened her mouth to take a bite,

"What are you doing!?"

Change of plans, she threw the crab cake back into the fridge and slammed it shut.

"Don't just eat things you find in enemy territory." The Commander lectured, clearly exasperated at having to explain that.

"Y-yes Ma'am, sorry Ma'am."

"Now is not the time to be screwing around." The lecture continued, "You're already on thin ice after your last mission."

Mimi looked down, scowling, "He would've mopped the floor with me." She defended, quietly.

"Doesn't matter. You chose to hide and let the enemy steal one of our Zapfish rather than fight. That embarrasses the rest of the army as much as it embarrasses you."

Mimi just took a breath and resolved to weather the lecture. The Commander probably had a point about not eating the crab cake, but she still felt like she was right to not challenge that Inkling. He took out the rest of the squad, what chance did she have? But her commanders didn't see it that way. 'Course not. Octoling's have honor and it isn't honorable to refuse to fight the enemy. She felt that there wasn't much honor in getting creamed by someone way stronger than you either, but apparently, she just didn't have the same kind of will power as the rest of her team.

The Commander, perhaps sensing that Mimi wasn't completely listening and wanting to get on with the mission, huffed, "Look, just try to look competent? This is a big mission, and you're lucky to be a part of it. All we have to do is scout the area and report back to General Octavio if it's safe to set up an ambush. If things go smoothly, it'll go a long way to restoring trust with you, and all you need to do is some basic scouting. Understood?"

Mimi nodded, glad to have the lecture end, "Yes Ma'am."

"Good. Let's head out, there's nothing of value here."

The two stepped out of the shack. The commander pulled out her radio, calling the team she sent ahead,

"This is your Commander. Report."

" _We've made it to Area 3. No sign of anyone, but a few signs that someone has been through recently. Can't proceed any further, this is likely the furthest the enemy has made it into the Valley. Awaiting orders."_

"Copy that. Stay there and be prepared to detain anyone who comes out of the kettles."

" _Aye aye, Ma'am."_

Once again, the Commander considered the information. It was the fact that someone had been through the Valley recently that tripped her up. She honestly couldn't imagine an Inkling being up early enough. She'd heard most of them didn't wake up until it was already sundown, and then most of them just went back to bed in a constant cycle of being lazy and useless.

Granted that might've been an exaggeration from an old veteran, but if you could trust an inkling to be anything it's lazy, so she believed it anyway.

Well, may as well give it some more time, just to be safe.

She called out, "Regroup!" and had her other soldiers before her a few seconds later.

"Report."

"Nothing found Ma'am. The area is empty."

She nodded. "Okay, here's the plan. It's… nine thirty," the commander said, taking a second to check her watch, "We'll wait until nine fifty in case the enemy appears. If nothing happens, then we'll call in Octavio and get into hiding until he arrives. He's leading this ambush personally, so I expect all of you to carry yourselves as if you were elites and show respect-"

A noise came from their left. All four turned their heads. Walking from a manhole was… what the commander could only call a diminutive Inkling, in a white sweatshirt, carrying some kind of oversized splattershot.

The Diminutive Inkling looked at them, quizzically.

"Uh, yo. You guys with Will, or…?"

The soldier's shared a glance, then aimed at her all at once,

"DROP THE WEAPON!"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

"…So then I said, 'look lady, eat my 9th tentacle.'" Recounted one soldier to the other.

"Did she?" asked the other.

"Well no, but she took my coupon."

It was at that moment that his radio hissed to life, and loud angry sounds started shouting from his hip. The soldier hastily fumbled for the radio.

"Commander?"

" _Just catch the stupid- Yes! Listen, we have a situation, may have been compromised, get up here and help us deal with it- Oh how did she get away!? You had her!"_

He could hear a scuffle, and angry high-pitched screaming in a language he didn't understand. He shot a glance to his buddy across from him, who could only shrug their shoulders.

"Uh, commander?"

" _Look just get up here! Bring someone with you!"_

"R-right, copy that, but what about the Inkling-"

" _That's why you're leaving two soldiers behind, now hurry up, that's an order!"_

"Copy that!" The soldier slammed the radio back onto his belt and waved for his friend to follow him.

"What the heck is going on up there?" said friend asked.

"Let's find out I guess. And let's hurry before we give her a reason to yell at us." He said, already jogging away. His friend hurried to join him, casting a glance back at the Kettle they'd been guarding.

They looked back to their fellow soldier "You know, with our luck, that Inkling will come back while we're gone."

And because fate is a cruel mistress, who's favorite tool is coincidence and irony, it was then that they heard the squelchy sounds of someone popping out of the kettle. They froze in place and looked back at the target they were supposed to have jumped.

"What the?" Agent 3 exclaimed at the sight of the soldiers.

"Ah shell!" The soldier yelled, hurrying to take aim.

Unfortunately for them, Agent 3 was already moving.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

Mimi fell on her butt, clutching at her mouth,

"Oh come _on_! How did you not catch her that time!?" her commander yelled,

"She kicked me in my freaking mouth!" Mimi yelled back. She poked at one of her teeth with her tongue, hoping she was just imagining that it felt loose,

"She's half your size! Would someone hurry up and catch the little gremlin already!?"

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!" said gremlin yelled as she was chased by two other soldiers. They fired at her as best they could, but her smaller size made for a difficult target, not at all helped by how fast she could move. Occasionally she'd fire back with that oversized splatter shot of hers, but so far every shot had missed. Perhaps the Inkling's massive forehead displaced her eyes, giving her poorer depth perception?

With a frustrated sigh, Mimi stood up. Figures she'd have to chase after some mini inkling, instead of having a normal mission. What was the inkling even doing here? More importantly, who kept putting her on these high stakes missions anyways?

"Quit running you little wad of Inkling scum!"

"I DIDN'T COME HERE TO LOSE! I CAME HERE TO THROW DOWN!"

"Big talk for someone who hasn't stopped running!"

Ugh. Well, better get back at it. Wouldn't want the superiors to complain that she hadn't done her fair share of chasing the midget.

"Hey!"

Wait, that voice was new. Mimi turned to it and- ah carp.

It was _him._

The inkling they were supposed to be worried about, with a Zapfish tucked under one arm, was running at them. The commander stopped with a gasp, then ran to meet the new threat head on, with the other soldier deciding to go after the, literally and figuratively, bigger target as well.

"Hey! We aint done here!" The little Inkling yelled, running to join the cluster-you-know-what that the fight had become.

Mimi… probably should join that too… but…

She shook her head. No way, that guy was still too tough, forget it. And that little Inkling was a wild card she didn't want to deal with. But what was she supposed to do? The exit was on the other side of the fight. They'd be after her once they took out the Commander and the other soldier. Heck, they already got the other soldier, shot down from behind by the little Inkling while he was distracted dealing with the invader. What to do, what to do,

Wait, there was another exit… but it was…

Mimi looked at the manhole, to the fight, to the manhole, to the fight…

"Dumbest thing I've ever done!" She yelled to herself, as she ran and dived through the Manhole the little Inkling came from.

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

The commander, denoted as elite from the two strands of seaweed in her hair, fought well. She kept her attention on 3, but would shift just enough attention to Pearl to keep her at a distance. But then 3 threw a bomb at her, which reminded Pearl that _she_ had bombs, and she started throwing bombs. Even the best strategies go out the window when you toss a whole bunch of grenades at it. One of the grenades clipped the commander and tripped her up, so 3 dived into the ink and swam right up to her while she recovered. 2 seconds of sustained fire later, and the Commander was an Ink stain.

3 sucked in a breath. No more enemies, right? He checked the area. No, looks like there aren't. he felt like there should have been another, but for all he knew whatever kind of mission they were on could have had different team composition. He looked over to Pearl, was she alright? She was hunched over, hands on her knees, catching her breath, but looked fine.

Okay, danger gone, he could let out that breath and some stress with it. He put a hand on his chest as he exhaled, noting that his heart was beating a lot faster than normal. Squids were not meant to feel that kinda panic.

What the heck were Octolings doing in the valley? They'd invaded parts of the city plenty of times, but they'd always avoided the Valley. The only Octoling who ever went to the Valley was General Octavio when the Cap'n was… kidnapped…

Wait was that today?

No way! It was at least five or six days before the Cap'n got kidnapped in the original timeline, he should have had more time before this was an issue. So what the heck just happened here? Would they have had any reason to invade the valley? He couldn't think of a reason.

3 dragged his hand down his face. He couldn't think of a reason unless he accepted that his meddling had somehow made them try to kidnap the Cap'n earlier. And because of his numskull plan to get Pearl to join the Splatoon he almost got her kidnapped. Super.

3 looked over to Pearl again. "Uh, Pearl? You okay?"

Pearl didn't look up, still catching her breath, though her panting had slowed down, "Dude… My heart's pounding like a drum… the way they came at me…" She raised her head, revealing her face splitting grin, "That was dope!"

"Wh- huh?"

"Oh man, the adrenaline going through me is off the charts! I haven't felt this exited since that time I blew out the amps at a concert! For a second there, I really thought they were trying to kill me!"

"Um…"

"Was that the initiation or something? Cause that was intense!"

"Uh, yeah, that was initiation, and you passed well done. Why don't we go get some breakfast to celebrate?" 3 said, leading her towards the manhole with a hand on her shoulder. He really didn't want to stick around for a variety of reasons. What were the odds those soldiers had back up?

"Ah dope! Knew I was cool enough for any group! I already had breakfast though."

"We can get something small, let's just get out of here real quick so we can… talk about team stuff."

"Dude, gotta say, if that's the kinda high octane stunts this team of yours gets up too, I'm looking forwards to it. I didn't even know I was an adrenaline junky till now!... hey is that a zapfish?"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

Marie knocked on the door and was greeted by Cap'n Cuttlefish a moment later.

"Mornin' gramps." Marie greeted.

"Mornin' girls," Cap'n said, giving his granddaughters a small hug as they entered the hotel room, "Whadja bring for breakfast?"

The Hotel the Cap'n was staying happened to be close to their route to work, so the Squid Sisters had taken advantage of that by having breakfast with their grandpa.

Callie set a plastic bag on the table and started pulling takeout boxes from them, "I got French toast, Marie got Crepes, and I got you grits," Callie turned to the Cap'n and shrugged, "I have no idea what grits are honestly, but they sound like something old people eat, so…"

"We also got toast for Agent 3. Even though he told us not to get him anything." Marie added.

"I literally can't imagine an Inkling that doesn't want free food. I _think_ he has to be messing with us, I just can't figure out how?" Callie looked down with a finger and thumb on her chin as she tried to puzzle it out.

"Hm. Well, speakin' of Agent 3, we best get him up. Be back in a sec-"

The phone rang then. With a small annoyed sigh, because really who would be calling at this hour, Cap'n walked over and grabbed the phone, while his granddaughters dug into their meals. Callie was already half way through a sizable piece of French Toast, which was naturally covered in powdered sugar and whip cream, and smothered in syrup. Marie sometimes worried for Callie's stomach. Sugar was good, but there _were_ limits, c'mon.

(Not that her eating habits were any better, mind you. Her 3 crepes were filled with a cream cheese filling and strawberry slices, drizzled with extra chocolate sauce, and generously dusted with powdered sugar. She just ate slower than Callie, and she somehow figured that made it healthier)

"Mornin', might I ask who's speaking?" Cap'n greeted, "… Oh, Agent 3! I was just about to go wake you up."

Callie and Marie looked up from their breakfasts, the phone call had suddenly become interesting.

"Why are ya calling instead of coming to my room? Callie and Marie are here, they got ya breakfast… Why would they expect ya to pay them back for toast? Why don't ya come down and get some grub, it'll be easier to talk that way… Now hold on a minute, ya went to the valley early? Without telling me? Why? _"_

' _Sounds like 3 is up to something.'_ Marie thought to herself. Callie and Marie looked at each other, shrugging and raising eyebrows respectively, silently agreeing that this situation was odd, before listening back in.

"What!? How'd Octolings get into the Valley!? They came fer me!?

"They what?" asked Marie.

"How'd ya know that?... Hrm, fair point, they wouldn't risk invading the valley unless it was to get at us."

"Gramps they what?" Callie insisted.

"One sec," Cap'n held the phone away, addressing the girls, "Ocotlings invaded the valley, up to no good as usual." He then turned back to the phone, ignoring the girls' shock, "Now ya are alright, aren't ya?..." The cap'n sighed with relief, "Thank goodness. Don't go running off without telling anyone! It's too dangerous! What were ya even doing up so early anyways…? Huh…? I suppose I remember saying something about findin' new agents… Who's Pearl…? YOU'VE BEEN TELLING HER WHAT!?"

"Oh boy," sighed Marie, "Today's one of those weird days, isn't it?"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

* * *

3 managed to get his location out and hang up in between the angry ranting. He ran a hand over his face. That went about as well as it could've, he supposed. Well, maybe not. He was in for an earful later. To be fair everything would've been fine if the Octolings hadn't tried to attack early. Not that he could explain that of course, he was committed to keeping time traveling a secret at this point.

3 sighed and turned his attention back to Pearl. For the past few minutes he'd been explaining everything to her over a fast food breakfast. While he talked to the Cap'n, Pearl had been staring at the table with a troubled expression, like a jogger who only realized they'd accidentally signed up for an ultramarathon after the first mile.

"They're on their way here." 3 told her. "Here" being an isolated picnic table in the park that'd formerly been his bedroom. It was private enough while still being casual.

Pearl glanced up to 3, "You mean the… other secret agents?"

"Yeah, them. You alright?"

"I'm just trying to…" Pearl looked down and rubbed her forehead, "process the fact that you invited me to a big, secret-agent-save-the-world kinda deal without telling me."

"One of the first things I asked was what you thought of secret agents."

"I thought you were talking about a team theme! Like we'd dress up in tux's and speak in code or whatever! I didn't think you were serious!"

"Well, sorry." 3 said, scratching the back of his head, "You didn't ask, so I figured you were on board."

Pearl sputtered indignantly. 3 just shrugged.

Well, she didn't ask.

3's friends had long told him about (or rather, complained about) his "bad habit" of not giving enough information. How the heck was he supposed to know what to tell people if they didn't ask? They called it being frustratingly vague, he called it being efficient with information.

"Okay, so…" Pearl said, running a hand over her face, "Those Octos in the valley, they would've actually killed me?"

"Well, no, not kill. Probably just, you know, kidnap you."

Pearl glared at 3. With a slight cringe 3 mentally conceded that being a POW wasn't any better.

"I am sorry about that. I didn't expect them to come into the valley. For what it's worth, you handled yourself well back there."

"Pff, yeah right. I could barely hit any of em."

"Hey, you managed to dodge around four trained soldiers for minutes, that's not nothing."

3 couldn't help but feel bemused as he said that. Was he really having to give Pearl a pep talk? Where was that endless bravado she always threw around? Guess that didn't kick in until the music career took off.

Pearl at least looked like she was considering what he'd said, so he pressed on with a bit of advice,

"Might be your gun's fault you couldn't hit anyone."

Pearl looked affronted, "What you got against my .52 gal?"

"A .52 gal is a good weapon, but they're inherently less accurate, especially against moving targets." He explained, "They're also fairly heavy," (for someone Pearl's size anyways, but he'd keep that bit to himself) "If you want to take advantage of your speed, something lighter and more accurate would be the way to go."

The Splat Dualies had pretty much been tailor made for her. A Pearl that could dodge roll was a Pearl that could harass you for hours without you being able to hit back. He'd never tell her, cause it'd go straight to her head and she can't afford to let that get any bigger, but he really did think that she'd have been formidable in turf wars if she could just stop getting over exited and jumping into crowds of enemies.

"Huh. So you think if I had something more accurate I might've taken out a few of those Octos?"

"Sure. And you know, you did take out one of them at the end."

"Just cause he was distracted. And you took out the rest anyways."

"I've been doing this for two years, don't compare yourself to me. You did good, all things considered."

"Huh… well… Thanks." Pearl looked pleased with herself now, "Guess I didn't do too bad on my first secret agent mission, huh?"

"Not at all. Think you might come back for a second mission?"

At that, Pearl looked troubled. "Uh, I mean, I don't know man…" She said, rubbing the back of her head.

Darn, looks like he lost her, "You don't have to if you don't want to. I'm not gonna force you."

"I mean, I like the adrenaline, and helpin' the city is good an all, but, going up against a buncha soldiers…"

"I get it. It's cool." A little disappointing, but understandable.

Pearl let out a breath, "Thanks." She said, relieved, "And ya know, I'd be down for a regular training sesh if that's still on the table."

3 wasn't a teacher in any capacity, but keeping Pearl close would pay off, "Sure, we could work something out."

Discussions may have continued, but at that point a loud voice called out, "Agent 3!"

3 recognized that voice, and turned around to see it's source,

"Oh, there's the Cap'n." He said, as Cap'n Cuttlefish strode over at as brisk a pace as one could manage when using a cane and being ancient years old. "Oh, and he brought the girls with him."

"The Cap'n?" Pearl asked, staring quizzically at the approaching old man, "That your boss?"

"Yeah. You may as well hang around, I'm sure he'll want you to promise not to talk about anything you've seen today."

"Not gonna lie, he's kind of a weird lookin' geezer- wait who are those next to him?" Pearl asked, her eyes suddenly bugging out of her head.

"The other agents. Let me talk, I'll try and keep the attention off of you."

"T-those are the Squid Sisters- You know the Squid Sisters!?"

The Cap'n and the aforementioned Squid Sisters entered comfortable yelling range, "Agent 3 I don't know even where to start right now!" The Cap'n said, angrily.

"Yeah, this was a bit out of left field." Callie said, looking more amused at the outlandishness of the situation than anything else.

3 held up his hands, calling for peace, "I know, I know. Just, let me start by saying you don't need to worry about Pearl. She's already said she doesn't want to join the Splato- Mrmph!"

Pearl all but dove over the table and clamped both hands over 3's mouth. She looked up at the rest of the Splatoon, but mostly Callie and Marie, with wide eyes and a manic grin.

"Yo! I'm Pearl! Super stoked to be a part of the team! Can I get an autograph!?"

* * *

-Agent 3 Back in Time-

-Chapter End-

* * *

 **Luckily, I was only mostly dead.**

 **For real though, I don't have a good excuse for my long absence, so I won't try to make one.**

 **I have no intention of letting any of my stories die. If I post something, i'm gonna try to get it done, even if it takes too long. I've been burned by stories I liked on this site never getting an ending, I don't want to do that to other people.**

 **Since I clearly have trouble working on one story, I've done the logical thing and started other stories as well. I Don't want to set up expectations, so just be ready for those. If they're ready to be posted, i'll post one a day.**

 **I realized a few chapters ago that Cap'n Cuttlefish does not have the accent I gave him, but I think i'm too far in to change it.**

 **Thank you for reading, sorry for making you wait, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.**


End file.
